15 km inland from Monasterace Marina. The ascent is a cat’s cradle of loops and twists, the village is glued to a cliff above a fiumara outfall, a wilderness of boulders and ridged gravel. A five-minute scramble above the village discloses La Cattolica and, once you set eyes on it, you see why the path is well-trodden and the visitors’ book full of exotic names and addresses. The building is a toy church in orange brick, with five cupolas the size of dustbin lids – an ancient doll’s house of a church, one of the Greek Orthodox tradition’s most marvellous bequests. Carry a lot of small change: Stilo babies learn to beg at their mothers’ knees. One hanger-on brushes the acanthus leaves aside, another lifts the barbed wire, a third unlocks the gate, a fourth opens the church, a fifth takes a familiar grip of your arm and pours inaccurate history into your ear. Ten centuries have given the locals ample time to bring the art of exploiting La Cattolica to perfection. Obstructed with fat little pillars, the interior would hold a congregation of nine. The annual service that was once held is held no longer.