The village carries in its name a city that may never have existed: Crissa, founded according to legend by Greeks who came from Locri Epizefiri in the 7th century before Christ. What is certain is that in the Middle Ages it was a casale of the barony of Vallelonga, from which it broke away in 1711, that it belonged to the dukes of Gaeta until 1776, and that the earthquake of 1783 devastated it. Today the best known spot is piazza Crissa, with the balcony from which, on clear days, you can see the Angitola, the gulf of Sant'Eufemia, four Calabrian provinces, the Strait of Messina and Etna: Ferdinando II of Bourbon called it the balcony of the Calabrias.
A word comes from here too. Over the last fifty years emigration has more than halved the population, and it was in this village that Vito Teti was born, the anthropologist who coined restanza: the attitude of those who stay in their own land not out of resignation but by choice, meaning to renew it, a definition the Accademia della Crusca has recorded. The book with that title is from 2022. At San Nicola da Crissa restanza lives alongside the returns of those who had left and the commitment of those who help from far away.
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📅 Every year, on 6 December
On 6 December San Nicola da Crissa celebrates its patron Saint Nicholas of Bari, whose name became part of the town's own name; the municipal territory preserves an old water mill.
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 Nicola da Crissa, but an easy day trip away.
