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ASCEA-VELIA
Uncontaminated beaches, luxuriant valleys of vegetation, hilly
slopes decorated with arabesques of cultivations, watercourses that
from the hinterland reach the sea, millennial traditions that are
handed down in the memory and in the uses of the local people: it is
this harmonic equilibrium between Man and Environment, between Myth
and History, between Sacred and Profane, between Ancient and Modern,
that makes Ascea-Velia cradle of Civilization and casket of Nature.
An unchanged earth in the time, preserved and rediscovered treasure,
marriage of religiousness and legends, crossroad of east and west
knowledges, synthesis of archaic alimentary cultures and typical
gastronomic specialties, symbiosis of authenticity and simplicity of
a warm and cordial people.
The intensity of feelings that the autochthonous community can
lavish finds a far origin in the sacredness of the guest, dear to
Zeus, as an inheritance of the Ancient Phocean Fathers, daring Greek
who, landed in the earth of the Enotrians, from whom they acquired
the right to settle on the high ground where Elea-Velia has risen.
In the ancient times the city had great fame for the meekness of its
climate (such that it was also climatic station and center of an
illustrious Medical School), for the prosperity of trade and, in
particular way, for the speculation of thought developed from the
Philosophical School of Parmenides and Zenon.
Indeed, this glorious history is vivified today by the polyhedric
dimension that distinguishes Ascea-Velia.
Such characteristic is testified, first of all, from the imposing
remains of the archaeological area (declared Patrimony of Mankind
from the UNESCO and included in the list of the Great Cultural
Appealers of Campania), then, from the beauty of the coast, marked
from an enchanting beach and from an open and crystalline sea,
already praised by Vergil, awarded with the Blue Flag of Beaches as
well as of the Sails of Legambiente and the Touring Club of Italy.
Abandoned the blue-sapphire of the sea expanse, the blinding green
that winds the fertile lowlands of Baronia and Stampella becomes as
more opaque and, with the silvery tones of the many-centuried olive
groves, covers the hills of Ascea Capoluogo, suggestive terrace
leaned out on the " Mare Nostrum ".
Chromatic tones, changing from yellow to brown, countersign, instead,
over the year, the panorama of the high hill, where the small
regions of Terradura, Catona and Mandia, are mantled from rich
chestnut woods that, with the sources of pure water and the refined
deliciousnesses of the brushwood, represent an apotheosis of nature.
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