Cotronei

The name is a genitive: Cotronei comes from Cotrone, as Crotone was once called, and means simply «of Crotone». According to several scholars the town was born for exactly that reason, as a lookout and signalling post that the people of Crotone kept towards the interior, to be warned if an invasion came by land instead of by sea; others place its foundation in the thirteenth century. The highest peak of the territory, for that matter, is called Timpone della Guardiola, the watchman's crag. You climb from the 145 metres of the valley floor up to 1665, among old pines, firs and birches, and halfway up lies Lake Ampollino.

The modern town was made by water. Under fascism the building of the Timpagrande hydroelectric plant gave Cotronei a push that the neighbouring towns did not get, and energy is still one of the pillars of the local economy. In the hamlet of Trepidò there is the Palumbo village, with ski lifts, a bobsleigh run and an ice rink. And then there is a connection nobody expects: the paternal grandfather of Steven Tyler, the Aerosmith singer, came from here and was called Giovanni Tallarico. In July 2013 the grandson came to see the house of his forebears and to meet the relatives who had stayed.