Calabria can still amaze tourists and travellers with its strong contrasts, its environmental and scenic "anomalies", its different ecosystems and "natures", its varied and rich cultural heritage, and its history to which Mediterranean and European civilisation can trace their roots. Calabria has innumerable faces: radiant as befits a peninsular with 800 km of coast bathed by two seas, the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian; dark and Nordic on the massifs of Pollino, Sila, Serre and Aspromonte, all covered with forests rich in torrential rivers, the so-called "fiumare", which wind to the plain. These rivers are unpredictable for a Karst phenomena of considerable natural importance. Calabria has a myriad of cultures and traditions which are unified in a civil coexistence of tolerance which respects them by extolling them; the ancient Hellenistic rites, the Protestant faith, the language, the literature, the customs of the Albanian communities. Today, travelling as a tourist in Calabria means rediscovering the allure and the peace of the ancient historical centres which populate the hills, the mountainous terraces over the sea, the cuisine with its full-bodied and sincere flavours. Calabria is a modern region with airports, railways, motorways and trunk roads and above all, prestigious hotels which can satisfy any need, make the trip comfortable and the stay pleasant. Calabria's most important cities - Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio Calabria and Vibo Valentia - all welcome guests and are the starting points for natural and historical - cultural excursions of great charm.