centro storico, collinare, di mezzacosta, difensivo, Grotteria, Eruma Atenaies (denominazione originaria, XI sec a.C.), Athenaeon (denominazione storica, VI sec a.C. ca), Crypta-Aurea (denominazione storica, periodo romano), Agrettaria o Gruttaria (denominazione storica, medioevo), Grottaria (denominazione storica, XIII sec.), Grottarea (denominazione storica, XIII sec.)

The hilltop centre of Grotteria still wears its medieval bones, though a late nineteenth-century road, now Corso Gramsci, was driven straight through it, splitting the old town in two. Its origins are older and hazier: the original settlement was known as Eruma Atenaies in the eleventh century BC, later as Athenaeon, then Crypta-Aurea under the Romans, before acquiring its present name. The castle ruins that preside over the huddle of houses were probably built by the Normans atop an earlier Byzantine structure. What remains, a stretch of perimeter wall, two cylindrical towers, a cistern, and a shattered granite portal, still shows the slits from which the valley below was watched. The narrow lanes, often only passable on foot, are lined with noble palaces whose grand portals, many bearing family crests and eighteenth- or nineteenth-century dates, remain the proud signatures of the local gentry. Stone walls and tiled roofs keep the traditional fabric intact, while the gafi, ancient covered passageways beneath the houses, add a further quiet peculiarity.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.