Scalea

The name does not come from the stairs, even if the old town climbs in terraces and the explanation is handy. It more probably comes from the Greek skalíon, diminutive of skála, which in the Middle Ages meant a landing place, a mole, a quay: and the landing place was the islet of Torre Talao, in front of the town. Under that tower, in the caves, stone tools and bones of the Palaeolithic have been found. Further south, on the river Lao, the people of Sybaris had founded Laos in the sixth century before Christ, to keep up their link with Posidonia.

In the old town you walk underneath the houses: the suppuorti are covered stretches of street, born because for defence people built one house on top of another, until the town was a single wall. After rebelling against the Angevins, Scalea became crown land, with a tax relief that did it good: its merchant fleet came to be among the most renowned in Calabria, and its ships called at ports all over the Mediterranean.