@MT
Umbriatico....
In some way sound me familiar, but i dont know why.
BTW is near Crotone, checked the map.
People from Calabria is known in Italy (in jokes and popular culture) as stubborn people, with one-piece eyebrow, and a strong dialect accent.
Their accent is represented with strong C (read K) and T.
The dialect have some root in Napolitan (the kingdom that covered all Southern Italy before unification), and in Crotone and Reggio Calabria zones lot more strong Sicilian influence.
If you want a typical (excessive) representation of a Calabrese, check "the Godfather II", the man that Al Pacino call from Italy to assist the process he was in, and induce the "cooperator" to testify.
The food it's usually strong taste, with a big use of peperoncino spice (not like mexican food but near), in fact a particular very strong variety of the Peperoncino it's a typical product of Calabria.
The sea of Calabria is one of the principal vacation attraction, a lot of people of Southern Italy and a good share of the center and North, spend the sea vacations in Calabria.
There's a tradition to represent Calabria as the land of origin of the "Briganti", in some way rebels of the newborn Italy, usually mere criminals.
In the middle of the Region there's the "Sila" a group of mountains very rough and defendable, in fact it's a stronghold of the local criminal organization, called "n'drangheta" (derived from "Briganti" or so they say), the police (Carabinieri), usually goes in the Sila in complete war asset, sometime even using Armored Cars.
Attention, the n'drangheta it's NOT the mafia, have different origins, but anyway today it's almost under control (colonized
) by the sicilian mafia.
It's a beautiful land that deserve a visit, well, every place in the world deserve a visit (maybe with the exception of Detroit area
).
If you want to have a look to your ancestors land, give me a call, I will be happy to be your interpreter.
