Bova, where ancient Greek is still a living language

You come to Bova by choice, never by chance. The village is reached after a climb of hairpin bends winding up into the interior behind the Ionian coast of Reggio, to over 800 metres of altitude, some sixty kilometres from Reggio Calabria. When it finally appears, clinging to a spur of rock crowned by the ruins of the Norman castle, you understand why those who live here defend it with pride: it is the recognised capital of the Bovesìa, the Greek-speaking area, a handful of villages where a culture survives that elsewhere would already have vanished.

Here people still speak the Greek of Calabria, Grecanico: a minority language that scholars trace back to Magna Graecia or the Byzantine era, and which today endures on the lips of a few thousand people. Walking through the stone alleys means passing through centuries unhurried. It is worth stopping at the Museum of the Greek-Calabrian Language named after Gerhard Rohlfs, the German philologist who devoted his life to this speech: documents, photographs and recordings tell the story of a fragile and precious heritage.

Bova has no queues, no mass-produced souvenir shops, none of that background noise that by now accompanies the villages turned into postcards. What it has instead is the silence of the wind over the Aspromonte, the houses emptying out and the few workshops holding on, the elderly greeting one another in a language that few in the world understand. It is a beauty that asks for respect: you visit it on foot, slowly, buying bread from the baker and eating where the people who live here do the cooking.

Go in spring or early autumn, when the light is clear and the heat does not bite. Leave the car at the entrance, climb with no destination in mind and have someone teach you a word in Grecanico: taking it away with you, and keeping it, is the most honest way of having passed through.

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Getting there

Bova rises inland in the Greek-speaking area, perched above the Ionian coast of Reggio: by car you arrive via the Strada Statale 106, exiting at Bova Marina and then climbing along the provincial road that connects the marina to the village in about half an hour of hairpin bends. The nearest railway station is Bova Marina, on the Ionian line. The reference airport is Reggio Calabria, a little under an hour's drive away.