Patron saint festival In 52 days
The Immaculate Conception, patron of the land of the Garibaldi Museum
📅 Every year, on 8 December
Melito di Porto Salvo celebrates the Immaculate Conception on 8 December, in the church dedicated to her.
Melito is the southernmost municipality of peninsular Italy, and Garibaldi landed on this beach twice. On the nineteenth of August 1860, at Rumbolo, coming over from Sicily to take the mainland; and on the twenty-fifth of August 1862, meaning to march on Rome. That second time ended badly, on the Aspromonte, and the steamer Torino that had carried them was sunk by the Bourbon navy: it still lies at twelve metres down.
The municipality includes Pentedattilo, the ghost village clinging to the five-fingered rock from which, in the nineteenth century, every civil and religious institution was carried down to Melito. One bond has remained: the painting of the Madonna of Porto Salvo, found on the shore by sailors and kept in the sanctuary built in 1680, goes back up to Pentedattilo every year on the twenty-fifth of March and comes down again on the last Saturday of April, by a vow of the marquis Alberti.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Melito di Porto Salvo 1
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Near Melito di Porto Salvo
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Melito di Porto Salvo, but an easy day trip away.
Cattedrale della Madonna del Ponte 📍 Lanciano · 5.7 km Lanciano's cathedral, built over the arches of a bridge, with the terracotta statue of the Madonna del Ponte. Chiesa di San Nicola di Bari 📍 Lanciano · 6.0 km The church of Lanciano's Sacca district, with a late Gothic bell tower and fourteenth-century True Cross frescoes. Punta Aderci Reserve 📍 Vasto · 20 km Established in 1998, this 285-hectare coastal reserve features sandy dunes and the towering Punta Penna lighthouse. Riserva naturale guidata Punta Aderci 📍 Vasto · 19 km The first reserve on the Abruzzo coast: 285 hectares of beaches, dunes and cliffs north of the port of Vasto. spiaggia di Punta Penna 📍 Vasto · 21 km The beach of sand and dunes below the Punta Penna promontory, inside the Punta Aderci reserve. Faro di Punta Penna 📍 Vasto · 22 km Vasto's 70-metre lighthouse, the second tallest in Italy after Genoa's Lanterna, with 307 steps to the top.