Patron saint festival In 226 days
Maria SS. di Pietrasanta, patron of San Giovanni a Piro
📅 Every year, on the Monday after the last Sunday of May
San Giovanni a Piro celebrates Maria SS. di Pietrasanta on the Monday after the last Sunday of May.
San Giovanni a Piro has 3,818 inhabitants on a hill of the southern Cilento, with the two hamlets of Bosco and Scario. In the Riparo del Molare the jawbone of a four-year-old Neanderthal child was found; the finds are kept in the museum at Scario, which is called «A hundred thousand years before Scario». The harbour, at the foot of the village, perhaps owes its name to the Greek skariòs, a small shipyard.
This coast was exposed: in 915 pirates landed at the harbour of the Olivo and sacked Scario, and in 1534 Barbarossa arrived, followed shortly after by his successor Dragut; the little town stayed deserted for more than a century, until some fishermen, backed by the Carafa counts of Policastro, brought it back to life. In August 1846 a sailing ship caught in a storm found shelter here: the captain had promised to leave a statue of the Madonna in the first safe port, and ever since the Virgin goes out each year in a procession by sea.
The San Giovanni a Piro guide
🎉 Festivals and feasts in San Giovanni a Piro 1
No events match these filters.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near San Giovanni a Piro
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside San Giovanni a Piro, but an easy day trip away.
ricetto di Candelo 📍 Candelo · 6.9 km Two hundred cells inside a pentagon of walls: one of the best preserved ricetti in Europe chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta 📍 Vigliano Biellese · 7.1 km A Romanesque bell tower, a baroque front with a serliana, and a wall dated 1944 Villa Era 📍 Vigliano Biellese · 8.1 km An eighteenth-century farmstead turned into a show villa between 1884 and 1888 Castello di Castellengo 📍 Cossato · 13 km A tenth-century castle turned residence: the Frichignono arms and the Savoy siege that ended in 1409. Ecomuseo del Cossatese e della Baragge 📍 Cossato · 13 km A scattered museum of rural life, with the visitor centre for the Baragge reserve. Villa Ranzoni 📍 Cossato · 13 km The Ranzoni family's eighteenth-century villa, now the municipal library of Cossato.