Palmi

Palmi is a municipality in the metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria, in Calabria, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea above a stretch of the Costa Viola, at the foot of Mount Sant'Elia (582 m). With some 18,500 inhabitants, it is one of the main agricultural, commercial and seaside centres of the Gioia Tauro plain. Its best-known tradition is the Varia, a huge 16-metre votive float carried on the shoulders of some 200 bearers, inscribed in 2013 on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. In sport, US Palmese, a football club founded in 1912, and volleyball stand out, and the town hosted the start of a Giro d'Italia stage in 1982 and in 2022. Palmi has been designated European Town of Sport 2027, a title reserved for municipalities of fewer than 25,000 inhabitants, which places it within the broad Italian representation of the ACES network.