Days 62-65 – Bianco to Reggio Calabria, Italy – 142.5km

A small boy playing an accordion. He’s the first thing I see as I enter Samo, the last pocket of civilization before I disappear into the wilderness for a couple days. He looks at me ponderously and then ambles onward, slowly expanding and compressing his odd device.

If not for him, I could be forgiven for assuming that Samo is exclusively composed of old men. A group outside one bar immediately called me over, asking what I was up to, and offering me drinks. When I finished with them, another man, sitting on a bench across the way, flagged me over, asking “how are you doing today” in halting English. He explained that he learned the language in secondary school, at least a half-century ago. Soon after, another man waved at me, offered me a coffee, and busted out his own English.

It might be better to think of this as New Samo. The old town, formerly Precacore, sits atop the peak facing Samo from across a narrow gorge. A devastating earthquake in 1908 left Precacore in ruins and prompted the relocation of the population to this broader, flatter hilltop. Leaving my pack tucked away in a small grotto, I trotted to the ruins, some of which are being restored. First and foremost among them is the Shrine of San Giovanni Battista, still a site of pilgrimage, towards which locals will walk barefoot with votive offerings in June and August.

A light rain began as I surveyed the new town from the old, and so I quickly retreated to the grotto, hoping to wait it out. An older woman arrived soon after, carrying five large water jugs to fill up from the Fontana della Rocca. “It is very good water,” she explained, before learning that I was American. “My little brother lives in the Silicon Valley!” While the older siblings all stayed in the area, working the fields and raising goats, one pushed onward across the Atlantic, skipping two centuries ahead into the world of big tech.

That’s hardly unusual around here, at least the part about moving away. We don’t need to go back a long way; just consider the last century. In the first decade of the 20th century, 1.75 million southern Italians immigrated to the USA. Post-World War II, the south lost four of its 18 million, with the majority either relocating to northern Italy or elsewhere in Europe, though others headed to Argentina or even Australia. Over the last 20 years, another 400,000 have moved away from Calabria specifically.

Calabria’s population in 2023 was 1.8 million, continuing its long decline, and marked by a record low birth rate. The region saw only 13,282 births that year. Migrants now comprise 5% of the population, and I’ve seen clusters of South Asians and sub-Saharan Africans along my walk. The interior villages have been hit particularly hard by population declines. Most small municipalities have dropped by at least 50% since the 1950s, resulting in the accompanying closures of schools and other public services, which only exacerbate the problem. The transportation infrastructure is woefully under-developed around here, made all the more difficult by the challenging terrain, and this undercuts economic opportunities on the interior as well. As such, even those who stay in Calabria tend to gravitate to the coasts. Only the old remain. For the most part. Sitting in that grotto, I could just make out the faint sounds of accordion music.

I looped back through Samo and then made the long descent to the Fiumara La Verde, a wide, rocky riverbed. A faint trickle of a stream wound through the middle, but otherwise it was dry, flat, and unthreatening. It was also, for the next ten kilometers, my trail. Heading inland, the canyon walls gradually encroached on both sides, the peaks of the Aspromonte Massif towering ever higher overhead. A broad dam blocked my approach, but I was able to ascend an angled cement railing on one side, marveling at the ragged breach in the dam’s center–carnage left behind by a flood long past. Further inland, the devastation was even more dramatic, with a cement dam literally ripped down the middle, ragged rock protruding from the right. Ever so gradually, the riverbed ticked upward, and the gorge twisted and turned, and the water level rose. Piles of rock, fallen at some point–hopefully long past–lined both sides, sometimes necessitating a scramble and at other points requiring a wet crossing of the stream. Nothing could be assumed; even large rocks offered unsteady foundations, sliding out immediately from underfoot, making the walking treacherous at times, especially when the rain resumed and put a slick coating on everything.

Finally, though, I arrived at the crossroads, or the crossriver I suppose. Cliffside erosion has washed out the direct access to the trail, but it’s easy enough to scramble up the rocky hillside. Just above, on a small bluff overlooking the riverbeds, is a ruined house with the remains of an orchard surrounding it. This must have been an idyllic homestead at some point, before it all went wrong.

It took a while to find the trail that the gps assured me existed. Overgrowth blocked direct access, and a steep hillside made work-arounds more complicated. After some scrambling up, down, and back again, though, my feet found the way. What initially looked like a dirt track proved to be something much more substantial–a well-made, cut-stone road, working incrementally over the mountain through a series of switchbacks, the kind of thing that easily could have supported mule-drawn carts. Today, though, some six-to-eight inches of detritus have covered the surface, just the first sign of nature’s reassertion over human incursions.

At last, the road crested the mountaintop, and then wasted no time before folding back over the other side. Just where one might least expect it sat a stone church, in good shape behind a secure wood fence. The Chiesa San Leo remains a site of pilgrimage for the former townsfolk here, who make the journey I just completed annually in order to pay homage to their patron saint. Today, though, the church is locked and nobody else is around. I looped past the old cemetery and then descended into dense vegetation. Suddenly, just ahead, I spotted a cross and a steeple protruding from the jungle. Ruined stone buildings encroached upon both sides of the trail. A tunnel through the overgrowth and crumbling walls on my left delivered me in front of the church, in the midst of what must have once been a small piazza at the center of town. Àfrico Vecchio. My destination.

Life was never easy in Àfrico Vecchio. In 1928, the Italian researcher Umberto Zanotti Bianco published his book, Between the Lost People, which excoriated the brutal conditions faced by the people living here. Unlike Matera, though, which saw its own shame broadcast in Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli, Àfrico Vecchio would see no extreme makeover. On the contrary, just the opposite occurred. Already badly damaged by a terrible earthquake in 1908, the town suffered through cataclysmic flooding in 1951–three days of relentless deluge that caused landslides and sinkholes, necessitating a complete evacuation. A new town, Àfrico Nuovo, was established on the coast to accommodate the refugees; the old town, meanwhile, was abandoned to nature.

Within the church, the altar survives, as does the bulk of the pulpit, and a circular metal staircase leading to the rear balcony. Multiple holes have broken through the roof, though, and anything of value or spiritual import was long ago stripped. Fortunately, though, the front-right corner maintains its structural integrity–for now–and is relatively clean. A perfect campsite.

As the sun gradually set outside, lighting up the surrounding hills, a cacophony of birdsong burst forth, loud enough to rival anything I’d ever heard before. Not just song, but also aggressive hooting and barking, assertive and bold.

The very name, “ghost town,” suggests haunting, loss, lingering grievances and unrelenting despair. Whose suffering persists here? Those who died in those waves of natural disasters? Those who were forced to flee and rebuild their lives elsewhere? Those who labored long and hard, eking out the most meager of livings, with no tangible support from the waves of governments that promised so much and delivered so little? And what should I make of the enthusiastic glee with which I tromp around the site of such loss? Even acknowledging the underlying tragedies, the scars that line these very walls, there is something exceptional, something undeniably beautiful, about this lost civilization.

Leaving Àfrico Vecchio the following morning, I paused mid-trail as I approached what seemed like the foundation of a great temple, with a broad stone wall and a large staircase pushing inward. Opposite, the whole Aspromonte Massif opened wide, revealing a dramatic landscape, the sun just beginning to probe over the distant peaks. Those stairs didn’t lead to a temple, though. Instead, the old elementary school building sat at the top. Umberto Zanotti Bianco wasn’t content with simply exposing the challenges faced by the villagers; he spearheaded the construction of Àfrico Vecchio’s first school. Only one or two generations would get to enjoy it.

The trail gradually widened into a proper dirt road, and I soon realized I wasn’t alone. A lumbering, massive black pig–a cinghiale?–led the way. With my stomach in my throat, I started making noises, and then initiated a loud, one-way conversation with the pig, offering my best Woo Pig Sooie, hoping to scare him off. He couldn’t have been more dismissive, even as I gained ground, paying zero attention to me. This old piggie wanted none of it. And so we strolled into Villaggio Carra, the oddest of couples, before he finally veered off in pursuit of a tasty acorn, or something. Meanwhile, I was pleased to find the tiny village, with two rows of plain, cement buildings, a handful of people, and a mountain rifugio that offered a fountain.

An easy walk along the same dirt road carried me out of the hamlet, but soon after the Basiliano veered onto a footpath that plunged directly down the hill. And that “footpath” proved to be more conceptual than practical, as brambles draped across every part of the descent–a descent marked by loose scree, making the footing treacherous and the consequences of failure rather dire. Still, there were no good alternatives, so I delicately probed my way through, and even with significant care I emerged with both of my forearms thoroughly lashed, each of my shirtsleeves coated in blood. Fortunately, that was an exception, and the track improved considerably once I completed that descent.

After having maintained maximum vigilance, I finally lifted my head once again and took in a whole new scene. I had emerged into the Amendolea Valley, home to the historic Greco-Italian population. A dramatic descent–on much better footing–brought me down into Roghudi Vecchio, another ghost town, but one that held on longer than Àfrico Vecchio. In 1971, though, the rains came for Roghudi as well–a year’s worth of rain in 48 hours, leaving the town isolated for weeks and causing a number of deaths. This was no tiny village; 1650 people lived here. And yet, the mayor pulled the plug, ordering a complete evacuation. A new Roghudi was established on the south coast, next to Melito Porto Salvo. Some, as they always do, fought the order, refusing to leave their ancestral home, but two years later another violent storm ripped through the valley and those diehards gave up the ghost.

Where Àfrico Vecchio feels like Mayan ruins, long-abandoned and partially-consumed by nature, Roghudi maintains its urban integrity; it even looks like some buildings have received a relatively recent coat of paint. In one ruined structure, a dozen pairs of abandoned boots sit, like a tragic, reverse Cinderella. It’s an enviable if tiring location for a town, perched along a thin ribbon of hill, with views of the valley radiating out in every direction. So steep were the hills, so sheer the drop-off, that children here had ropes tied around their ankles and attached to large nails on their doors, to ensure they couldn’t fall too far.

I took a more gradual approach to the riverbed, following a narrow series of switchbacks out the backside of the village. The Fiume Amendolea led me southward, fortunately never requiring any wading. Ahead, I noticed a curious sight–a pack of five dog-like creatures that slowly meandered through the stones before they spotted my presence and scattered. Four bolted ahead, while the fifth scaled the mountainside, bounding up and over scree and bushes. Wild dogs? Wolves? There aren’t many of the latter in Calabria, and they tend to be further north, but one can’t help but wonder.

Finally, the ruins of an old mill appeared on the left, while the riverbed widened substantially and opened up to a grove of poplars and oleander on the right. A trail led me steeply uphill on the west side of the gorge, and before long I could see everything from Roghudi to the Mediterranean. Loud whooping noises cut through the silence, and in the distance I picked up a man’s voice. Looking back in the valley, I saw the tiny figure of a goatherd, mushing his pack into the riverbed, like ants marching along a massive gravel road.

When I crested the mountaintop, I passed a sign for the Sentiero dell’Inglese, the English Trail, inspired by Edward Lear’s travels here in the 19th century. This would continue to overlap with the Basiliano over the next couple days. Around the same time, my destination for the day, Gallicianò, took shape just ahead. After delicately maneuvering around three cows who were utterly unconcerned about blocking the entire trail, I emerged in the village center–straight into a small group of men who were gathered in the small piazza. The welcoming committee applauded my arrival and swiftly ushered me into the bar for a celebratory coffee, while also calling my host to come and meet me there. “I didn’t realize there was a bar,” I exclaimed, as I gratefully sipped my first coffee of the day. They smiled. “How many people live here?” “Twenty-six,” one responded. Elsewhere, I had read that the number was sixty. “But we have a bar, two restaurants, and two churches. Gallicianò, the message was clear, punches well beyond its weight.

Gallicianò is the center of Italian Greece, a symbol of the persistence of Magna Graecia, and a reminder that isolation–for all the downsides and hazards, as exemplified in its neighboring ghost towns–has its benefits. The old ways can be preserved when outside influences are limited, and the evidence of that is everywhere in Gallicianò. A Greek Orthodox church, the prominence of the Greek language in spoken conversations and written signs, an amphitheater overlooking the broad valley below.

My host, Giovanni, took me on an impromptu walk through the village, showing me the way to his family home, where dinner and breakfast would be served, before returning me to my room for the night. The next morning, he opened up the small ethnographic museum for me, showing me a compact but rich collection of artifacts, including a side room reconstructed as a typical home. Pointing to the terracotta jars, he explained how the village women would fill these in the Fontana dell’Amore and carry them home on their heads. “How long ago was this?” “Until the ‘70s and ‘80s,” Giovanni answered. Drinking from terracotta jars until the 1980s.

A proper road feeds into Gallicianò, supporting its efforts to kindle a modest tourism economy, and I couldn’t complain about the easy walking as the new day began. In time, a short-cut brought me straight downhill along a footpath through large cacti, before returning to the road and making a final approach into Condofuri. Set right alongside the riverbed, I was struck by the presence of a few African women and their young daughters–a completely different demographic from everything I had encountered over these past two days.

And then a significant ascent began, climbing all the way up to the mountaintop, 850 meters high, where the village of San Lorenzo holds a commanding view of the region. The Ionian Sea is easy to spot, as are the surrounding Aspromonte peaks; were it clearer, I would have been able to see Mount Etna as well. In the center stands a massive elm tree, older than Italy, filling the piazza between the two churches with shade. Inevitably, an equally dramatic descent followed, plodding all the way back to a different riverbed, across which sat the largest town I had encountered since Bianco, Bagaladi, another thriving center of Greco-Italian culture. With ancient origins, and formerly a center of Byzantine worship, this most recent permutation of the town was established in the 10th century, and throughout the millennia it has been known for its honey and olive oil.

As I pushed westward, temptation tugged at me. Having studied the map, my eyes drifted southward, pulled by three different forces. The southern coast of Italy was right there, offering me the opportunity to extend this into a coast-to-coast-to-coast walk. Along with that, Roghudi Nuovo was immediately accessible, and I was curious to see what this emergency settlement might look like. As an added bonus, there was a Lidl supermarket, which is two standard deviations better than every other supermarket in Italy for a vegetarian. All that for just a five kilometer detour. I couldn’t resist.

In hindsight, I think I might have been happier without the images of Roghudi Nuovo in my mind. I try not to disparage towns; even when they’re in rough shape, those are economic forces at work, and it feels like a bad look to punch down. People do the best they can with what they have, and Italians often take special care with such measures, especially with colorful flowers and other decorations that make even the dodgiest structures feel like home. New Roghudi, though, is sterile, milquetoast, soulless. Instead of the effort and care that is so palpable in villages across the region, the village smacked of resignation. These were houses, not homes. Behind those closed doors, I had to wonder if the residents were asking themselves when the price of security is too damn high.

Disaster, it has to be noted, also brings opportunity, at least in time. One only needs to look a handful of kilometers north from Roghudi Nuovo to appreciate this reality. A spectacular geological formation dominates the mountaintop. While I see an oven mitt, the Greeks discerned five fingers, and hence named it Pentadaktylos, which over time became Pentedattilo. Given its undeniable prominence, this position would have held immense strategic value in the Greco-Roman world, but by the Byzantine era it shifted into a spiritual role, earning the proto-papal seat in the 6th century. While those Greek influences persisted, the town itself declined, eventually being surpassed by the convenience of Melito di Porto Salvo on the coast. And between those same devastating floods, and the broader trends of emigration, it shared the same fate as many of its peers.

Despite all of that, I encountered the one thing in Pentedattilo that I wasn’t prepared for: crowds. I mean, relatively speaking, The old town, wedged onto the hillside below those towering stone fingers, is compressed around a single, narrow lane, and so a group of twenty can create quite a traffic jam. Along the way, their attention also was pulled in surprising directions–towards the small bar and sorbet shop, into the petite wine store, to the man making crafts along the walkway, and into the colorful garden that has been replanted outside the church. Outside a souvenir shop, a couple pounced upon me, asking if I had booked accommodations for the night, or if I needed to arrange something. Overwhelmed by all of this sudden stimulation, I pushed out of Pentedattilo more quickly than I might have liked, but before long I turned back on the footpath and took in the scene from a distance, admiring the back of the oven mitt. And appreciating, too, the hustle. This is a village that deserves to be preserved, saved, recovered even. Bring on the tourists.

Alas, those conditions scuttled my admittedly ill-conceived vision of camping in some vacant structure in Pentedattilo, and so I carried onward into the late afternoon, repeating the now-familiar maneuver of dropping steeply to a riverbed, crossing the broad, stony basin, and then climbing, climbing, climbing. The small town of Masella, much to my disappointment, was actually inhabited. For a moment, I considered sleeping in the cemetery overlooking town, but just as I sat to take a break an old couple arrived with armfuls of flowers. And so, far more sweaty than I would like, I ended up laying out behind a small utility station, where I once again had my expectations thwarted. Far from cold, the night remained warm, much too warm for all my preparation, and so I tugged open the bivy, gasped for air, and then marveled at my good fortune. The clouds had parted and a marvelous star show was already underway.

I took full advantage of those conditions by rising early the next morning, eager to reach Reggio Calabria. Ascending ever higher, I watched dawn gradually paint the horizon, the Mediterranean twinkling off the southern coast. After skirting the edge of another prominent ghost town, Motta San Giovanni, which was demolished in the 1783 earthquake, I earned my long-awaited reward–a view not only of the west coast and Reggio Calabria, but also Sicily, sitting stunningly close. Even better, a half-rainbow plunged straight into the city center, a flashing arrow guiding me forward.

If absence proved to be the dominant theme for most of the first three days of this walk, my last day of walking in Calabria returned to the defining characteristic of the region–the unrelenting kindness of strangers. As I descended into Rosario Valanidi, a small community clustered around a stream that completely flooded the surrounding area in 1953, I was out of water and a fair bit dehydrated. I was also borderline despondent to not find a bar. But then there was a man, standing by the side of the road, sorting dried figs in a small box. He turned to me, smiled, and handed me one of them. “Try this!” Before I even finished swallowing, he added, “I should get a bag,” and then his partner called out from inside their shop, Macelleria Savoia, “would you like a coffee? Some water?” Hell yes, I did.

Munching on an ample supply of figs, I stormed the next hill, weaving through tight switchbacks past giant cacti and gnarled olive trees. It’s harvest time, and I passed a few different elderly couples out on ladders, tag-teaming the shakedown. Before long, though, I reached the last town before Reggio, small Armo. The parish priest, Don Michele, was speaking with a community member outside the church as I arrived and he took immediate interest. He noted that he speaks English, as his mother was Australian, and so we pinged back and forth between languages, before he declared that he would drive me to the grotto. Part of me hesitated, always a little reluctant to impose, while also hearing the clock ticking in the back of my head, but then I jumped in the car. The schedule would take care of itself.

The Grotto of Sant’Arsenio is Armo’s claim to fame, the site of where a 9th century Basilian monk prayed and labored near the end of his life. Arsenio was known for his endurance–he worked long hours, engaged in extensive self-flagellation, and sometimes fasted for whole weeks. After his death, his body would also endure repeated attempts at burning by dissatisfied Saracen raiders, who had expected to find some sort of treasure in his tomb. Ultimately, they conceded his sanctity and reburied him properly.

The grotto, unfortunately, is in a state of disrepair; the walkway leading to it is actually roped off with caution tape. Such things, of course, are merely suggestions in Italy, so I hopped over and climbed to the cavern in the hill, carefully weaving around the fence posts that are all in various stages of collapse. Don Michele could not hide his frustration with the state of affairs. “In the north,” he said, “this would be a major sight. People would pay money to come. There would be investment. But here…” His car jolted badly over a rough spot in the dirt track. “Buses used to come here.” He pointed out a building nearby that looks newer, with a fresh coat of paint. “They even built an accommodation for people like you, which is great.” And yet, a single promising initiative is offset by all the surrounding failures. This is one of the tragedies of Calabria–even when positive investment occurs, the accompanying systemic breakdowns compromise whatever benefit might be gained.

Don Michele brought me back to his house for a coffee and a snack, and multiple opportunities to get playfully mauled by his dog. No bars, but two coffees. This day was working out.

Rarely does one enjoy the walk into a city, and I was even less prepared than normal for the final approach into Reggio Calabria. There’s no chance of finding a rhythm when heading through urban Italy. The sidewalks are torture devices for walkers, constantly rising high off the ground and then crashing back down to street level. Add to that the generalized practice of cars parking halfway onto the sidewalks, bar seating filling other chunks, and slow-moving (or non-moving) walkers taking up the rest of the space. But at least there were no brambles.

If the Reggio Calabria of the present lacks a certain atmosphere, natural disasters once again bear the brunt of responsibility. There’s little to see from the Greek and Roman settlements that once occupied this ground. As recently as 1908, an earthquake razed the whole city. Unlike those Aspromonte villages, though, Reggio Calabria is too important to abandon. It isn’t just a Calabrian city; it’s the Calabrian city. Catanzaro, the second-biggest city in Calabria, is literally half the population, 86,000 versus 173,000. And to their credit, the city architects here made great choices with the waterfront, which includes “the most beautiful kilometer in Italy,” and the most impressive collection of massive trees that I have witnessed on this walk.

Standing on the small, rocky beach, Sicily looks almost close enough to touch. There’s talk these days about a bridge project, linking Reggio Calabria and Messina. What would become the largest suspension bridge in the world, spanning 3.6 kilometers, has received approval from the state. All signs are pointing towards this moving forward, but locals maintain ample skepticism. They’ll believe it when they see it. Proponents hail this as a game-changer for Southern Italy, with projections suggesting an infusion of 100,000 jobs and a nearly three-billion-euro annual boost in GDP. Will this keep more Calabrians home, and maybe even bring others back? Or has Lucy saved the biggest football for last?

Regardless, if the bridge comes, it will be too late for me. I’ll be on the ferry tomorrow.