…in an ancient land of shepherds and brigands.
Acerno, Irpinia, Campania region. Bardiglia pic-nic area is four km away…so in the village I get a fruit cannoli, two jam tarts and a can of coke, then I leave for the campsite. Some up and down then a beautiful white walnut forest appears. Here you can have horse riding, fishing, hiking and others. I get a local dry bread (you have to wet it to eat it!) and a half kilo slice of caciocavallo cheese. I pitch my tent closed to a hut, it might rain. Later on I have a shower, change my sweaty clothes and order a beer, looking for somebody to chat with…
In Acerno they remember the dead, a dozen, of the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. The same one that razed the town of Calabritto, in the upper Sele valley, surrounded by olive trees and bushland. Here I have breakfast at Bar Britta. According to the legend, Britta was an easy and very beautiful woman. Men interested in her favors called her loudly “Cala Britta!!!” . Hence the name of the village. On the road there are a lot of bumps among farms, ruins, herds and flocks. It’s 12.30pm, partly cloudy, around 27 Celsius degrees. Muro Lucano is my today’stop. Beeches and turkey oaks feed forestry works.
After crossing the Monte Romito pass at over 1100 meters above sea level, I quickly descend to Potenza, 300 meters below. At the entrance to the city, I find a fruit vendor and buy some sweet white grapes, three peaches, and half a kilogram of small pears. While climbing, I dreamed of fruit juice or mint water! I have lunch in a beautiful park with a fountain, then around 1:30 PM, I reach the nearby B&B: shower, rest, and a phone call home. Later, I go out for a walk to the nearby historic center. The staircases and the verticality of the buildings are impressive… forget architectural barriers, here they have the most extensive escalators in Europe! In fact, the historic core of Potenza is located at 800 meters above sea level in the upper Basento valley, while the new city develops below, along the river, hence the need to connect the two sites with multiple escalator systems.
Spinoso is a small village closed the artificial Pertusillo Lake, surrounded by forests of oak, acacia, and conifers. The lake not only powers a hydroelectric plant downstream but also supplies water to the Apulian aqueduct, which provides drinking water to Bari and Taranto. What do people do here? They mainly engage in agriculture, especially producing olive oil. But as I walk through the narrow streets of the perched village, I come across an impromptu concert in the square, on the church steps: a mandolin, three guitars, and a tambourine. They play nice Lucanian folk songs: tarantellas, quadrilles, but also mazurkas and polkas, taking requests from the audience under the watchful eyes of the elderly lined up on the bench!
I enter the Pollino Park. The air is scorching hot, it feels like walking into a fire! Pollino Park is the largest in Italy, straddling Basilicata and Calabria. It connects the limestone Apennines in the north with the metamorphic-sedimentary Apennines in the south. Laino Borgo is an important rafting center on the Lao River (which gives the town its name, of Greek origin). I arrive at a landing point on the Lao, under the bridge. Downstream from the town, the river runs through a gorge, with stronger currents and greater difficulty.
Upon arriving in Morano, one of the main centers of the Pollino National Park, Nando guides me with his racing bike to the start of a section of the Ciclovia dei Parchi. This bike path, created along the route of a disused railway, gently slopes down to Castrovillari. It skirts around a conical mountain and descends onto a plain cultivated with olive trees. Very pleasant! Nando shares more about himself, his work as a freelance lawyer, his four adopted children, the local mafia called “‘ndrangheta” and the innate attitude of Calabrians towards submission to the stronger, even when they harshly criticize them (in private).
After a couple more transfer stages, I arrive at the Sila National Park. My destination is the artificial Arvo Lake. Here we are. The campsite in the vast forest of towering larches is open all year round. Not far away is the Park’s headquarters. I set up my single-person Ferrino tent and go exploring. On the lake, you can go canoeing and on the shores you can go horseback riding. My ride stops tomorrow seaside, at Lamezia train station. Luckily, I do not forget to buy some handcrafted gifts for my “girls”: olive wood earrings for Marta, a magnet for Virginia, and a local spinning top (locally called “strummulo”) for Camilla.
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