The twenty-first of July in San Lucido is the day of the ciùati, the madmen, and it is called the day of the vulàta. It is the memory of a battle: in the sixteenth century, when the pirates of the terrible Dragut arrived, the people of San Lucido ran down to the beach and threw themselves into the water fully dressed, just as they were, to defend the town. For a long time they would also smear themselves with red, to recall the blood that was shed; then only the custom of getting soaked in one's clothes remained, and to outsiders it looked like an oddity. Since the nineteen-nineties the day has joined up with a summer carnival, which knows a thing or two about madness.
The castle, today reduced to ruins with a tower and a stone bridge, belonged to the Ruffo di Calabria princes, and two opposite destinies came out of it: in 1744 cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo was born here, the man who would lead the Army of the Holy Faith against the Neapolitan republic, and to the same family belongs Paola Ruffo di Calabria, queen of the Belgians beside Albert II. The town had already been given away in 1092 by Roger, duke of Calabria, to the archbishop of Cosenza. White tufa is quarried from the mountains, and on the bare rock the capers grow by themselves.
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📅 Every year, on 24 June; 21 July brings the re-enactment of the «vulàta»
San Lucido celebrates Saint John the Baptist on 24 June. On 21 July, the day of the «ciùati» is historically celebrated, also known as the day of the «vulàta», a re-enactment of events tied to late-16th-century coastal raids.
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Outside San Lucido, but an easy day trip away.
