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Baia di Santa Maria

Santa Maria Bay is a small urban settlement where stands the church once cared for by the Jesuit Fathers of the College of Tropea and transformed into a place of worship entrusted to the Chapter of the Cathedral of Tropea.

It became a rural church for farmers and fishermen of the adjacent village during the seventeenth century and was enlarged during the eighteenth century and dedicated to Holy Virgin Mary di Loreto.

After the earthquake of 1905, was raised the bell tower, changing the perspective to hut that the façade had previously had.

On the promontory, which closes the bay to the north, stood a Greek settlement, the ceramic finds found in the 70s of the last century date the presence of the Greeks from the sixth to the second century BC. Later in the year, near the bay arose a Roman settlement witnessed by the large warehouse of amphorae found in the 80s.

The most recent studies of the materials, now at the Archaeological Museum of Ricadi, are advancing the hypothesis that Portus Herculis stood here.This hypothesis supported by the description of Strabo who places it along the same coast of Medma (today Rosarno).