The Agunì Farmhouse accommodation
Disponibilita Camere
Children and Extra
Camere
General Info
History
This farmhouse-accommodation facility was established at Palizzi, in the south-westernmost area of the Italian peninsula, beyond the Aspromonte massif, where the Appenine chain meets the Ionina Sea (the very centre of the Mediterranean ) in an area evocative of ancient Magna Grecia. These places fascinated travelling writers and artists like come Edward Lear and Maurits Cornelis Escher for its sublime, spectacular natural environment.
This farmhouse and all its outhouses , built at the beginning of the twentieth century and belonging to the Pansera family, were restored and refurbished, with the assistance and advice of the Laboratorio Regionale di Ricerca Scientifica applicata ai Centri Storici [Regional Laboratory for Scientific Research applied to historical centres], the Faculty of Architecture – Department of Architectural Heritage and Urban Planning (PAU) of Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, safeguarding the original building and in observance of the norms of green-architecture. Local material, like Palizzi’s new traditional lime, was mixed in the traditional manner with pastazzo [waste from the Bergamot production industry]. The tiles and terracotta finishings were handmade; the stone quarried in the Palizzi area.
The guesthouse
A farmhouse-accommodation facility, which also includes the Agunì restuarant, is situated on the eastern slope of the Piano di Gunì [Giunì plain]. It provides beds for twenty people in nine rooms, with a breath-taking view of the Costa dei Gelsomini [The Jasmine Coast]. It is ideal for a holiday outside of the usual tourist circuits, it stands 400 metres above sea level, and provides a panoramic view of the Mediterranean.
To be a guest of the Agunì guesthouse is a stirring experience, which permits one to enjoy the peculiarity of the place, of a truly special locality.
The building avails of solar panels to produce hot water and of photovoltaic panels for its electricity and to power its air-conditioning system.
The Agunì farmhouse’s restaurant consists of indoor premises which can seat about 30, to which an extra 70 can be added outside.
All the rooms guarantee maximum comfort; all have ensuite bathrooms and are provided with the latest IT connections. It is also possible to request shuttle services to and from Reggio Calabria’s the airport, port and central railway station, as well as to and from the Palizzi Marina beach or other localities close to the farmstead.
The Agunì farmhouse-accommodation restaurant was awarded the Tradizioni Reggine [Reggio Area Traditions] Seal of Quality by Reggio Calabria’s Chamber of Commerce. This seal was instituted with a view to promoting and publicising “quality food, by identifying companies that, inspired by tradition, prepare and serve dishes, availing of the produce of the province of Reggio Calabria, while meeting essential quality standards”.
Prices
| B&B | Single rooms | Double rooms | Pax
supplement |
Supplement for children up to 10 |
| € 60 (low season)
€ 80 (high season) |
€ 80 (low season)
€ 100 (high season) |
€ 25 (low season)
€ 35(high season) |
€ 15 (low season)
€ 20 (high season) |
|
| Half board | € 75 (low season)
€ 95 (high season)
|
€ 120 (low season)
€ 150 (high season) |
€ 45 (low season)
€ 55 (high season) |
€ 30 (low season)
€ 40 (high season) |
| Full Board | € 90 (low season)
€ 110 (high season)
|
€ 150 (low season)
€ 180 (high season) |
€ 55 low season)
€ 75(high season) |
€ 40 (low season)
€ 55 (high season) |
Rates refer to the cost of a room per day, unless otherwise specified with reference to special offers, and include VAT.
They include: breakfast (served between 8:30 and 10:00 am), electricity, hot and cold water, television, bed linen and towels.
The half and full board prices do not include drinks and desserts.
Payment: 50% upon booking. Booking down-payments are not refundable in case of cancellations. Bookings for which the required down payment is not made within three days will be cancelled.
The restaurant
The restaurant offers guests authentic Mediterranean cooking, with its simple, well-cared-for dishes that hark back to the peasant tradition, paying attention to the area’s produce , a judicious mix of flavours, aromas and colours that reflect the passing seasons. Through its menus, the Agunì farmhouse valorises the products of the tradition and of the area, which tend to be forgotten or vanish, some of them of Greek origin. Many of the dishes are based on typical local products like the capicollo azze anca grecanico [dry-cured shoulder muscle of pork] or the caciocavallo di Ciminà [a seasoned cheese made from a blend of goat’s and cow’s milk]. Both are approved and protected by the Slow Food and are the basis of many dishes. The manner in which they combine with the local IGT Palizzi [red wine], the attention paid to the raw materials they are made from -produced on the farm itself- and their enthralling flavour, offer guests a unique sensorial experience.
Specialities
Hors d’oeuvres: typical local charcuterie and cheeses, meat balls, vegetables in season.
Starters: fresh home-made pasta with wild artichokes and almonds
Main dishes: meat, braised in IGT Palizzi Rosso Aranghìa wine.
Desserts: bergamot tart
Wines: IGT Palizzi Rosso Aranghia, IGT Palizzi Rosato Damusa, IGT Calabria Bianco Calanchi
Liqueurs: Bergamino, Liquirizia, Finocchietto, Crema di limone, Limoncello, Cioccolato [sweet, after-dinner alcoholic drinks containing, respectively, bergamot, liquirice, fennel, lemon, lemon , chocolate]
The menu
The menu varies with the changing seasons
Hor d’oeuvres
- Typical local charcuterie.
- Pecorino cheese with chilli comfiture.
- Aubergine dumplings with sweet-and-sour onions.
- Fresh ricotta cheese.
- Stuffed bell peppers.
- Deep fried rice dumplings with ‘nduja [a particularly hot, spicy, spreadable pork sausage, found particularly in Calabria]
- Aubergine parmigiana [ a lasagne-like dish, using slices of aubergine instead of pasta]
Starters
- Large pasta shells filled with local ingredients.
Main dish
- Stuffed roll of rabbit.
- Local pork loin cooked in IGT Palizzi Rosso Aranghìa wine
Vegetables
- Baked potatoes
Dessert
- Bergamot tart
Prices
€ 22.00 pp. drinks excluded
Holders of the Carta degli Amici della Greek Calabria, enjoy a discount of 10%
Meal times
Lunch: 12.30-2.00 pm
Dinner: 7.00 pm -9.30 pm
Bookings
info@aguni.it
+39 3428249708
Check-in
Flexible
Check-out
Flexible
Credit cards accepted
American Express, Visa, Euro/Mastercard, Diners Club.
Check-in
Check-out
Accepted payments
Servizi
Animals
Conditioned Air
Credit Card
Equipped for the handicapped
Group
Internet
Park and Garden
Parking
Private Beach
Restaurant
Safe
Sport Activity
Televisione
Animals
Activities
Parcking
Palizzi
The SS 106 highway leads to Palizzi Marina, an ancient port that the late sixteenth-century Calabrian scholar Gerolamo Marafioti said could “easily accommodate seafaring vessels “.
Porto Palizze, as the bay was called in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, still has, and not surprisingly so, a promenade that, though small, is the only one that throbs with life in winter. There is no trace left of the port’s berthing harbour, except for the watchtower which in 1595 began to be called Torre Mozza [stumpy tower] because its upper storeys had been flattened. Only a single corner, standing on a rectangular base, remains today. The village is divided by a river into two districts: Murrotto and Stracia, names clearly alluding to the past. From both neighbourhoods two roads lead, respectively, to small hamlets called Palizzi Superiore and Pietrapennata, passing through the finest vineyards to be found in the Grecanica area.
But the beating heart of Palizzi is its historic centre which stands 272 metres higher up than the seaside village.
THE NAME
Some hold that the name of the town derives from the Greek politsion a diminutive of polis (city), others claim that it comes from polìscin, which seems to mean “shaded locality”.
HAMLETS AND TOWNLANDS
Palizzi Marina, Palizzi Superiore, Pietrapennata, Spropoli; Contrada Iermanata, Contrada Gruda, Case Sparse.
HISTORY
Palizzi is all one could ask of the typical fairy-tale village: a castle towering on the top of an imposing outcrop, a mediaeval village at its feet and a humpbacked bridge straddling a stream from way back in the fourteenth century. Documented for the first time in the mid-eleventh century as belonging to the monastery of Sant’Angelo in Valle Tucci, Palizzi, at the end of the twelfth century it was mentioned as part of the property of the Counts of Bova. In 1322, the estate was sold by Bartolomeo Busca to Guglielmo Ruffo di Calabria, Count of Sinopoli, a landowner with vast estates covering huge areas of southern Calabria. At his death, Guglielmo’s grandson, Antonello, had to share the barony with his uncle Folco, thus giving rise to the Ruffo di Palizzi-Brancaleone branch of the family, which continued for four generations, not without some abrupt interruptions due to dynastic strife between the Anjou and Aragon dynasties. In 1479, Palizzi was in the hands of Bernardino de Maldà Cadorna though by 1498 it had returned to the Ruffo, who had work done to the north-eastern part of the castle, where signs of the refurbishments carried out by architects from the Kingdom of Naples, Francesco Giorgio Martini and Bernardo Rossellino, are evident. The marriage between Geronima Ruffo and Alfonso de Ayerbo d’Aragona in 1505, ushered in a series of repeated dynastic changes which saw the barony pass first to the Troiano Spinellis, then back to the Ayerbo d’Argona family and then, in 1580 to that of the Roman Messinas. It was Giacomo Colonna Romano who had the coat of arms added to the castle entrance, probably as part of further restoration to the building. Owned by the Messina Arduinos since 1666, in 1751 the Palizzi estate was sold to the De Blasios who retained it until 1806 and carried out significant renovation of the castle that characterises, to a certain extent, the building’s present aspect. The imposing building overlooks the village which is medieval in atmosphere and full of narrow lanes and endless stairways leading to the main square and Saint Anne’s Church.
EXPLORING THE HISTORIC CENTRE AND THE TOWN ITSELF
Set against a superb natural backdrop, the village seems to cling to the sandstone outcrop at the foot of the imposing castle. Visitors are immediately spellbound by the village’s unique medieval centre: “palazziate and solarate“[buildings and roofing], the result of imaginative architectural solutions. Its cellars, subways, stairways and roofs (in curved tiling) all depict an untouched natural scene.
The itinerary walk begins at the Schiccio Bridge which straddles the Palizzi river and provides a glimpse of an ancient mill.
Arriving at the centre of the village, it is possible to visit the parish church of Sant’Anna, which houses an interesting corpus of statues of saints and madonnas, including a wooden sculpture by an unknown artist, commissioned in 1827 by Palizzi’s last baron, Tiberio De Blasio.
At the back of the apse stands the marble statue of Sant’Anna e la Madonna [Saint Anne and the Madonna] one of the first sculptures in the round ever seen in the Bova diocese and dating from the second half of the sixteenth century. Of the same period, but of a different artistic mould, is the dome above the left aisle, testifying to the persistence of Byzantine architecture, also evident on the outside of the building where tiling was used to lighten the construction. In this parish, in 1574, the Stavriano established the diocese’s first Latin comunia, to which he donated all of Palizzi’s church property. As only Latin clerics could belong to this community, the Greeks were excluded, impoverished, and managed to survive only by devoting themselves to agriculture and sheep herding. They died leaving heirs who did not even dream of continuing the ministry of parents who had been inexorably defeated by the events.
Passing through the laneways, characterised by particular anti-seismic architectural solutions, the visitor reaches the Mediaeval Castle, a national monument recognised by Italy’s Cultural Heritage Ministry.
The town’s recently-built seaside village stretches along the magnificent coast, the nesting place of the famous Tartarughe Marine Caretta Caretta [Loggerhead Sea Turtles]. Palizzi is, in fact, the chief municipality responsible for the Progetto Life Caretta Calabria [The Calabria Loggerhead Life Project] which, since 2013, is a part of the European Commission’s Environmental DG’s Life Programme.
PALIZZI IGT (typical local product)
The Palizzi area is renowned for the abundance of its vineyards which produce an excellent red wine bearing the IGT label, and which can be tasted in the town’s many characteristic cellars (catoi). For this reason Palizzi is known as the “town of wine”.
Well-known and appreciated throughout the Palizzi area, this is a strong red wine, excellent with roasts, elaborate traditional dishes featuring goat’s meat and pork ragout, stews, game and mature well-seasoned cheeses.
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Maps
Telephone
Smartphone
Web Site
Address
How to reach us
Da Locri percorrere la S.S: 106 in direzione Reggio Calabria.
Giunti a Palizzi Marina seguire la segnaletica che dalla S.S. 106 indica la strada per raggiungere l’Agriturismo Agunì che si trova in collina nei pressi della località Camine.