Guardia Perticara is a centre of ancient origins with testimonies that prove the presence of the Enotri in this territory already between the eighth and fifth centuries BC. In the village, which is part of the circuit of Most beautiful villages in Italy, not to be missed are the nineteenth century Mother Church of San Nicola di Bariand the Church of Sant’Antonio, dating back to the sixteenth century. The centre of Guardia Perticara, to which the village owes the name of “village of stone houses” is truly characteristic, with its narrow alleys, steep stairways, perched houses and ancient stone buildings, some of which were semi-destroyed after the earthquake of 1857. The Mother Church, rebuilt after the tragic earthquake, hosts a stone bas-relief dating back to the seventeenth century depicting San Nicola, also portrayed in an eighteenth-century wooden statue.
