The Calabrian dialect was spoken in his home in Pittsburgh until the age of sixThen, “At school I learned the American language.” Catherina’s bilingual is the stubborn spy of Calabria who is unable to abandon his roots. After a life spent in the United States, At the age of fifty, he decided to visit his parents’ country of originAfter this first time, my whole life here changed. The country and the people who live there have changed everything. I started coming back a lot,” he says with a mixed American accent as he walks the narrow streets of the historic center of Miglerina, a town of 700, while driving To the last group of Americans visiting the village.
From the United States to Miglerina
From the Land of Departures it has become a destination for sustainable tourism at the human level. Narrow streets, glimpses of the Ionian sea and the field, a place for meetings and gatherings. From the United States to Miglerina was a short stepThree years were enough to build a tourist destination that found its focal point in Katharina, a restaurant entrepreneur in Pittsburgh and now a tour operator in Calabria: “When I came to visit, I took pictures and videos and on my return to the US – he says – everyone asked me to come here“.
experiential tourism
This is how regulation started in 2019 The first two trips, one in the summer and the other in the Christmas periodThanks to the close cooperation in the meantime with the mayor of Miglierina, Pietro Hiram, he took part in a project to restore the historic center of the village: “It all started in 2005 with an analysis of what could be the possibilities for development from the country. We commissioned a study – which the mayor is still defining – for experts on University level and we decided that Focus on redevelopment of the village for the purpose of experiential tourisma slice of tourism that fits perfectly into our territory, made up of small numbers and people willing to move around a small village and experience something different.”
Every house has a story
Thanks to a loan to restore the historic center, 11 old houses have been renovated and now converted into a widespread hotel: “Each house bears the name of those who lived there in the fifties and sixties of the last century And from an urban architectural point of view, they are the same color so that they are easily recognizable. Even the interior furnishings are recovered from those originally in this house – the mayor explains -. The headboard of the bed, the cabinet was made by Calabrian craftsmen starting with the wood found in the houses themselves ».
the quiet of the village
Houses abandoned due to immigration are returning to a new life today. After a small break imposed by the pandemic in 2020, travel resumed in 2021 and again this year with the arrival of four organized groups: “We are already working to improve services and increase accommodation capacity,” the mayor adds. Americans love to vacation in a small village and often come back in the summer as well as in the winter:I take them to Tropea, Sila and Crotone – says Catarina – all the more charming places in Calabria but Americans prefer to stay in MiglerinaTo sleep, live, and communicate with people, because they love peace.
“Prone to fits of apathy. Introvert. Award-winning internet evangelist. Extreme beer expert.”
