Giardini delle Esperidi Festival

Giardini delle Esperidi is an experience, a project, a proposal that is born to take care of our places in the South of Italy, to rediscover ancient, slow life models, alternative to the rhythms of contemporaneity.

We value our places as an expression of a time management in harmony with nature, a resource that need to take care of, and with the community that takes part in every breath of the life of their own land.

The country becomes the protagonist of a cultural proposal that comes from what the communities most deeply recognize as root.

For this reason, in a five-day event the communities tell their story, offer their beauties out of the common logic of fast consumption, they make themselves an authoritative voice, old advice, they tell us about the journey, the return, the hospitality, deep and sincere values of an authentic culture.

The places of Zagarise, small towns in the province of Catanzaro, in the splendid landscapes of the Presila, will allow guests, musicians, authors and performers to discover the genuineness of the places and products that are born there. Through words, books, stories, music, theater, gastronomy, art, the guests of the panel will make the country a new center for the exchange of ideas, the municipalities will make a network to produce cultural value and innovation through tradition.

At the same time, thanks to the meeting and the dialogue, the Giardini delle Esperidi project will allow the communities of origin to look at themselves with new eyes and to enrich themselves in the spirit of hospitality that distinguishes our countries.

The idea is therefore that of an event, a complex of events and initiatives focused on themes and products of the Calabrian enogastronomic and environmental culture (foods, wines, typical products, from bread to traditional recipes, from essences to oil, our table) associated with reading, visual art, poetry. The group of writers, actors and artists will perform in the areas of the Sila National Park and in the historic center of Zagarise, in a cultural project that will move from the core of the country to the countryside and from the mountains to the sea, to combine the themes and interests of the landscape with those of a new, alternative and eco-sustainable tourism.