EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

The site of ancient Kroton has been entirely lost, but in its day this was among the most important colonial settlements of Magna Graecia, overshadowed by its more powerful neighbour Sybaris but with a school of medicine that was famous throughout the classical world and closely linked with the prowess of the city's athletes, who regularly scooped all the honours at the Olympic Games back in Greece. In 530 BC the mathematician and metaphysician Pythagoras took up residence in Kroton and established an aristocratic party based on his ideas which eventually gained control, though the political turmoil that resulted from the sack of Sybaris led to their banishment from the city. Kroton went on to be the first of the Greek cities in Calabria but was increasingly destabilized by internal conflicts and the external threat of the encroaching barbarians, eventually being destroyed by the Romans. A resurgence of sorts occurred in the thirteenth century when it was made the main town of the Marchesato region, a vast feudal domain extending from the Neto to the Simeri rivers, held by the powerful Ruffo family of Catanzaro. But its prosperity was always hindered by the scourge of malaria, which poisoned every initiative and debilitated its people, provoking the author George Gissing - himself a victim of malaria during his visit in 1897 - to condemn Crotone as "a squalid little town".

In recent times Crotone has been mired in drugs and crime, though the city's elevation in 1995 as one of Calabria's new provincial capitals may finally revitalize the area. In fact, past the ugly industry defacing the northern approaches, the old centre retains an agreeable, unspoiled character, and the town makes a good base for the beaches that spread to the south and for the Greek ruins at Capo Colonna . On the old town's main Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the Duomo 's chief draw is an icon of the Black Madonna, usually locked away, but displayed during May when, at midnight on the third Saturday, it is paraded through the town en route to Capo Colonna; the following evening it's transported back to the duomo by sea - the highlight of a week of festivities during which the seafront is jammed with stalls. At the end of the Corso, the church of the Immacolata has an ossuary in its crypt, containing hundreds of neatly piled skulls grinning under electric candle-light. Further up Via Risorgimento, the brand new Museo Archeologico Nazionale (daily except first and third Mon of month 9am-8pm; L5000/¬2.58) holds the best collection of finds from Magna Graecia on the Ionian coast. Alongside good examples of Greek and Roman coins, information about and fragments from the excavations at Crotone and its various colonies, lists of the Olympic winners who hailed from the city and maps of the digs (the main one right next to the main industrial complex), the cool and airy rooms display an array of items from Capo Colonna. Most noteworthy of these is the so-called Treasure of Hera , a beautifully restored group of bronze statuettes - including a sphinx, a gorgon, a horse, a winged siren and a very rare nuraghic boat from Sardinia - found in a tomb at Capo Colonna in 1987, and dating from the seventh to the fifth centuries BC. The most dazzling item is a gold diadem, expertly worked with garlands of leaves and sprigs of myrtle.

At the top of the road, the eighteenth-century Palazzo Morelli , which stands on the corner of Piazza Castello is one of several palaces built by Spanish nobility that surround the Castello , itself locally referred to as Charles V's but actually constructed by the Spanish viceroy Don Pedro di Toledo in 1541. Within, you can gaze over the sturdy ramparts to the town and sea below, and visit the Museo Cívico (Tues-Sat 9am-1pm & 3-8pm, Sun 9.30am-12.30pm; L3000/¬1.55), a diverting exhibition of old maps and photos of Crotone and around, plus coins and sundry heraldic devices. The ticket also allows you into the Torre Comandante , one of the sentinel towers (same hours).

Arriving by train you will need to take either a taxi or bus to cover the 1.5km to the centre of town, Piazza Pitagora, and most of the hotels. There's a tourist office at Via Torino 148, obscurely sited halfway between the station and the old town (Mon & Wed 7.30am-1pm & 2.30-5.30pm, Tues, Thurs & Fri 7.30am-1pm; tel 0962.23.185). The bus office is on Via Ruffo, a couple of streets east of Piazza Pitagora, where most provincial and regional buses arrive. Nearby, the small and clean Pace at Via Cutro 56 (tel 0962.22.584; up to L60,000/¬30.99) is central Crotone's cheapest accommodation choice, after which comes the rather dingy Italia , over the arcades of Piazza Vittoria, just off Corso Vittorio Emanuele (tel 0962.23.910; L60,000-90,000/¬30.99-46.48), and the much fancier Capitol (tel 0962.24.996; L120,000-150,000/¬61.98-77.47), at the bottom of the Corso at Piazza Umberto 61.

Below the Italia , the Caffè Italia is good for snacks, cornetti and refreshing latte di mándorla (almond milk). For something more substantial, there is no shortage of restaurants in this part of town, ranging from the basic Mary pizzeria with its wood-fired oven, opposite the Pace hotel (closed Sun), to Al Mio Ristorante at Via Nicoletta 8 (closed Sun), which has good-value set-price meals. For seafood, try the Ristorante Da Peppino in Piazza Umberto (closed Mon).