By train: Salerno-Reggio Calabria stop SS.FF. Pisciotta-Palinuro or San Severino Centola. By car: Highway exit with the A3 Salerno-Reggio Calabria, exit Battipaglia with SS.18 continue to Agropoli on first and variant SS.18, continue (new dual carriageway) towards Sapri Poderia exit and follow signs Palinuro .
HISTORY
Palinuro and his cape was already known by sailors of the ancient Magna Graecia to the danger of its currents, so they called Palinouros, a sort of head Spartivento. Themselves designate the name of a Greek siren, MOLP that the graceful, flowing river at the foot of Cape Palinuro, recalling in this way the dangers of the sea opposite the mouth of river.
In 540 BC Ionic settlers from Phocaea founded Elea (Velia) purchasing the rights to the land from the indigenous population, the Enotri at the same time erected on Cape Palinuro, in area Timpa della Guardia, a village with an adjoining cemetery.
The excavations have yielded an abundance of pottery, tools, jewelry and even some coins with incuse written Mol-Pal (Pal-Mol), who is about to Palinurus, the headland and Molpa (from MOLP) settlement. The history of Pal-Mol is very short, however, because about 30 years since its foundation in 510 mysteriously became extinct. Fascinated by the poet Virgil places gives his interpretation of the facts and said, Aeneid, Palinuro, helmsman of Aeneas betrayed by sleep falls into the sea, but come ashore is attacked and killed by the natives. The gods of the underworld, from the episode sacrilegious offended, punish the people with a terrible plague.
In medieval times we hear of one Molpa and a settlement was built on the hill that will be destroyed, a first time in 547 by Belisarius, Byzantine general. The survivors took refuge in the area contributing to the foundation of some villages still exist, including Centola. The Normans in the eleventh century, fighting against the Lombards, fortified the hill and built a mighty fortress, which still retains. The robust defenses Molpa not escaped the tragic fate that after ten centuries, the dawn of 11 June 1464, saw her attacked by Saracens who destroyed enslave the survivors. In 1554 the fief of Molpa-Palinuro was bought by the Spanish nobleman Don Sancho Martinez de Leyna who built some of the coastal towers.
The strategic nature of Palinuro not escape the king of Naples Joachim Murat, who, in the short decade of the Neapolitan Republic (1806-1815), protected the hill with a series of forts around which faced on several occasions by a French and the British, Bourbons and other brigands.
The ideals of the French Revolution had also breached the soul Cilento and uprisings of 1828 saw Palinuro involved in the fight against tyranny Bourbon: Palinuro was read the proclamation of the rebels Cilento "People were in Palinuro Neapolitan !,....", Capozzoli shot patriots. In subsequent years of the century there was a revival of the fishing village and some noble families built interesting structures there, remember Stanziola villa, Prince's Palace and Palazzo Rinaldi. Recent history saw the release of the weather station in 1936 and then the emergence of international tourists sponsored by Club Med and strengthened by the hardworking people of Palinuro.
Palinuro and his cape was already known by sailors of the ancient Magna Graecia to the danger of its currents, so they called Palinouros, a sort of head Spartivento.