Our Calabria is on the Joniche pre-silane hills, in the province of Cosenza, in the north-east of the region. The Sila National Park to the South, the Ionian Sea to the East, the Pollino National Park to the North and within this natural scenery there are four municipalities of Italo-Albanian or Arbereshë origin, of which Vaccarizzo Albanese is both the geographical centre and our home. Following the death of Prince Condottiere Scanderbeg, in the fifteenth century some of the Arbreshë people who didn't want to submit were granted lands in the Italian peninsula to escape to. In this way they could maintain their traditions, language and identity. It was in these lands, which back then were abandoned and not very fertile, that these ancient people began the cultivation of olive trees and other crops, which are still here today to bear their secular testimony.