San Luca has 4,044 inhabitants on the Ionian side of the Aspromonte, in a territory that climbs from the thirty-six metres of the river bed to almost two thousand at the summit of Montalto. It is the kingdom of stones: Pietra Lunga, Pietra Castello and above all Pietra Cappa, a conglomerate that is among the largest monoliths in Europe. In 1973 a landslide barred the Bonamico and formed Lake Costantino; the river's sediments then filled it in, and today it is gone.
Around Piazza Umberto I, in the oldest part of the village, stands the house where Corrado Alvaro was born, who wrote about this mountain. On 4 September 1943 the sky above the Aspromonte saw a clash between Italian aircraft and Allied fighters: commander Giuseppe Cenni, who always flew behind his men to cover them, was attacked by five Spitfires and crashed into the bed of the Bonamico. He was twenty-eight. He lay in the cemetery of San Luca until after the war, and since 1996 a monument on the seafront of Reggio recalls him.
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📅 Every year, on 18 October
On 18 October San Luca celebrates its patron and namesake Saint Luke the Evangelist; the town is the birthplace of writer Corrado Alvaro and lies near the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Polsi.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside San Luca, but an easy day trip away.
