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COSENZA , Calabria's first town of any size if you're travelling from the north, is also the region's most interesting, and makes a useful base to explore the surrounding area, particularly the Sila mountains. Historically it has always played an important role in the commercial and intellectual life of Calabria (Norman Douglas wrote, with characteristic hyperbole, "for acute and original thought this town can hardly be surpassed by any other of its size on earth"), and recently the town has generated a degree of wealth which - while still some way below most of Italy - has in the last twenty years or so literally transformed the landscape. New construction, much of it featureless and ugly, has sprouted everywhere, while its boldly designed university is expanding fast, helping to create a strong regional awareness and self-confidence. Completely enclosed by mountains - the Sila on the east, the Catena Costiera separating it from the sea to the west - Cosenza is the meeting point of two rivers, the Crati and the Busento. Somewhere beneath the latter, tradition has the burial place of Alaric the Goth , the barbarian who gave the western world a jolt when he prised open the gates of Rome in 410 AD. Struck down for his sins by malaria while journeying south, he was interred here along with his booty, and the course of the river deviated to cover the traces, lending Cosenza a place in history and giving rise to countless, fruitless projects to discover the tomb's whereabouts.
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