centro storico, di pianura, Praia a Mare, Praia d’Aieta (denominazione storica, XVII sec.), Plaga Sclavorum (denominazione storica, X sec.)

Here, at the foot of the Pollino massif, the historic centre of Praia a Mare is a coastal borgo built not around a piazza, but a cave. The natural cavity now housing the Santuario di Santa Maria della Grotta has sheltered humans since the Upper Palaeolithic; excavations have revealed a stratigraphic sequence running through to the late Roman period. The first settled nucleus formed below a Basilian monastery, later renamed for the grotta in the 12th century. Local tradition holds that in 1326, after a wooden statue of the Madonna was discovered here, farmers from nearby Aieta built the first houses at the cave’s foot. The medieval core follows Via Aieta, with a counter-ridge route leading to the sanctuary. The town consolidated along Via della Grotta and Via Fumarulo in the early 19th century, but its real urban expansion, along what became Via Luigi Giugni, came only after Italian unification and the end of the brigandage era. Today, the centro storico is bounded by the railway line and a grid of modest streets that still climb toward the mountain sanctuary.

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