What to see · Eboli

More places of interest

• Riserva naturale Foce Sele - Tanagro

  The Foce Sele-Tanagro regional nature reserve is a protected area of Campania, established by the Region under a law of 1993 and managed by the body that also runs the Monti Eremita-Marzano reserve. It covers 7284 hectares: it begins on the coastal strip on either side of the mouth of the Sele, in the municipalities of Eboli and Capaccio-Paestum, and follows the banks of the Sele, the Tanagro, the Calore and the Platano Bianco and Melandro streams, touching thirty-nine municipalities in the provinces of Salerno and Avellino. Within it are three special areas of conservation and one special protection area.

  What to see

  On the coast, north and south of the river mouth, is a pinewood planted in the nineteen-thirties, during the land reclamation, to protect the inland fields from salt: stone pine and Aleppo pine, the latter more resistant to sea air, with pockets of poplar, willow, bay and myrtle. Between the pinewood and the beach lies the dune, which holds the sand and defends the coast from erosion: juniper, sea daffodil, sea holly and yellow horned poppy grow there.

  Along the rivers the banks are covered by woods of poplar, willow and alder and by reed beds. The Sele is home to the otter, which has become the symbol of the Persano Oasis, and among the birds are the grey heron, the great crested grebe, the little bittern, the kingfisher and the black-winged stilt.

  Visiting

  The reserve is very large and has no single entrance: in the territory of Eboli it concerns the coastal strip with the pinewood, near the mouth of the Sele. Access, rules and events should be checked on the managing body's website.

  Our editors' tip

  The reserve's territory includes very different places: the Persano Oasis, a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, the thermal springs of Contursi, the caves of Pertosa and Castelcivita and, at Capaccio-Paestum, the archaeological site of Hera Argiva.

• Santuario dei Santi Cosma e Damiano

  The sanctuary of Santi Cosma e Damiano, in Eboli, is a twentieth-century church: it was built to replace the old church, still in use, which stands on the opposite side and was too small for the pilgrims. They came from Eboli and the nearby towns, Battipaglia, Olevano sul Tusciano, Serre, Postiglione and Salerno, but also from Avellino, Caserta and Naples. The foundations were laid between 1949 and 1950, on land given by the town council. It was an unusual building site: the material came from the rubble left by the war, and the faithful themselves acted as workmen and labourers.

  What to see

  The sanctuary has a single wide nave running up to the altar. The side walls, the apse and the main arch are covered with mosaics, and along the walls and in the apse are large windows with stained glass telling the life of the two martyr saints.

  There are also two canvases: an Immaculate Conception by Giovanni Bernardo Lama, of the sixteenth century, and a Deposition of the Sicilian school from the eighteenth century.

  Visiting

  Opening and Mass times should be checked with the sanctuary.

  Our editors' tip

  The feast, deeply felt in town, is held every year on 27 September, the day after the liturgical commemoration of the two saints, which falls on the 26th.

• Museo Archeologico della Media Valle del Sele

  The National Archaeological Museum of Eboli, formerly «of Eboli and the middle Sele valley», is a state museum opened on 25 March 2000. It is housed in the former convent of San Francesco, a complex founded in the thirteenth century and much altered in the sixteenth and eighteenth. Before the last war it held the town hall, the magistrates' court and the grammar school; bombing partly destroyed it and it was abandoned, until the works of the nineteen-nineties gave part of it to the museum. The collections come from excavations in the Sele valley, always a meeting place of different peoples, at the outlet of important transit routes.

  What to see

  In the atrium is the «stele eburina», the base of an honorary statue with inscriptions on three sides, studied by Theodor Mommsen among others. The dedication, of 183 AD, is to Titus Flavius Silvanus, patron of the municipium of Eburum, and it was offered by the college of the dendrophori, who dealt with the felling of woods and the transport of timber to Rome: it is the document that shows Eboli was a Roman municipium.

  On the ground floor the display runs from the Neolithic, with the finds from San Cataldo, to the rock-cut chamber tombs of the Gaudo culture found at Madonna della Catena, on to the Bronze Age, with fragments of Mycenaean-type pottery from the hill of Montedoro, and the Iron Age, with men's grave goods of weapons and women's rich in jewellery of bronze, silver and amber. On the first floor are the cemeteries from the seventh to the fourth century BC, with bucchero ware made in Campania and imported Greek pottery.

  Visiting

  Opening times, tickets and closing days should be checked on the website of the Direzione regionale Musei Campania.

  Our editors' tip

  Among the grave goods look for tomb 31 from via San Berardino, of the sixth century BC: it holds the highest concentration of Greek imports recorded.

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