Agropoli
8 minutes far from La Suscella
Agropoli stands on a promontory overlooking the sea. The territory has been inhabited since the Neolithic era by populations devoted to hunting and fishing. At the mouth of the Testene river there was a bay, used by the Greeks for trade: in fact, the Greeks themselves founded the colony of Hercules there. On top of the promontory, however, they built a temple dedicated to Neptune. After the Vandals’ raids in the fifth century, the village was abandoned by the inhabitants who moved to the promontory. Between 535 and 553 during the Greek-Gothic war, the Byzantines chose to build a stronghold there, whose name was Acropolis (“upper city”). In 882 the city was invaded by the Saracens, who built a ribàt (new fortification): from here the other attacks to other villages were planned. Only in 915 the Saracens were expelled and Agropoli passed to the bishops, who ruled the city throughout the medieval era. Then the territory was ruled by several feudal lords. The Sanfelices were able to hold their power until the abolishment of the feudal system.
From 1811 to 1860 Agropoli was a part of the Torchiara district, belonging to the Vallo district of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and from 1860 to 1927, during the Kingdom of Italy, it was part of the Torchiara district, belonging to the Vallo della Lucania district.
The town is characterised by an old medieval style, which shows most of the ancient walls and the seventeenth-century portal. It is possible to reach it through the characteristic climb of the “scaloni”, one of the few examples of the well preserved monuments. The castle, characterised by a triangular diagram and three circular towers, is set in the central part of the town; it stands on the promontory and fits into the interior of the ancient village as a vertex, while the base extends out of the inhabited nucleus as an advanced fortification to obstruct the assaults. Other monuments and places of interest are: the towers (the presence of fortified towers, as well as along the entire southern Tyrrhenian coast, is linked to the threating presence of pirates); La fornace (inaugurated in 1880); the Mother Church of SS. Pietro e Paolo (of very ancient origins, a first document dates back to 593); the Church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli (tradition says it was built after the discovery in the sea of the statue of the Madonna that some infidels, at the time of the Turkish raids of the mid-sixteenth century, had tried in vain to take away) and the Statue of San Francesco (of more recent construction, 1980s, made of white Carrara marble).
One of the best features of this beautiful town is the sea, which includes a splendid bay, the Bay of Trentova, and a truly enchanting seafront; Features that allow Agropoli to obtain the Blue Flag now every year.
Sources: Wikipedia (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agropoli) InfoCilento (https://www.infocilento.it/turismo/agropoli/)
