Discover Sanctuary of the Madonna dell’Angelo

The church is small and plain -- a single-nave building in brick and stucco with a modest bell tower, and no architectural ambition beyond standing where it stands.

Its architecture is really its engineering: it is built onto the rock of the point and armoured against the sea, and the massive stone defences around it are as much a part of the structure as the walls.

The interior holds the venerated image of the Virgin above the altar, along with ex-voto offerings from the fishing community -- small painted panels and models of boats, given in thanks for survival at sea. These are the most interesting things inside.

The setting -- rock, seawall, water on three sides, and the sculpted boulders of the Scogliera Viva running away from it -- does the work that architecture would do elsewhere.