In 1915, Norman Douglas undertook a journey through Calabria, the wild and neglected heel of Italy's boot, and produced a travelogue that has hardly been surpassed for its combination of erudition, wit, and sensual observation. He ambles through ancient towns where Greek colonies once thrived, where Saracen and Norman influences left their mark on stone and custom, where Frederick II's castles rise against a harsh and beautiful landscape. He records the present inhabitants with an eye both affectionate and sharp: their superstitions, their hospitality, their peculiar dignity. This is not guidebook journalism but literary walking, the kind of book that makes you hear cicadas, smell thyme on the hillsides, and feel centuries pressing against modern life. Old Calabria endures because it transforms a place into an atmosphere, and the traveler into someone whose company we crave.
