In the contrada Petra area on the edge of Gioia Tauro lie the scattered remains of a Roman necropolis and a Roman villa, remnants of the ancient settlement of Metauros — a Greek city of Magna Graecia that later became a Roman town. The site is not formally excavated or presented, and what survives is fragmentary, but archaeologically significant.
For visitors with a particular interest in Magna Graecia, the ruins at Contrada Petra provide a tangible link to the ancient Greek colonisation of southern Italy. Gioia Tauro sits in territory where Greek settlers established cities as early as the 8th century BC, and the ruins here are one of the few visible traces of that long history in an area that receives few visitors. Access is straightforward from the town.