There is a paradise on the Italian coast that you don’t know. But neither you nor the Italians themselves. That’s why I hesitate to tell it, to reveal this secret, but there are those who encourage me: its own inhabitants. Its mayor, even; the entire town hall, which came to greet me with gifts (a book about the area, a village banner) because it was the first journalist to travel to that remote corner of Campania. The event appeared in the newspapers; the honest generosity of the neighbors stayed with me forever.
The place was Cuccaro Vetere, a hill town from which the sea was visible. With its cobbled floors, its family chapels, those steep slopes on which cats and the branches of olive trees that jut over the walls are the only company. There is also the church, small and humble, where the priest chats with the neighbors. The man who works in the garden, the walls bearing the irresistible patina of time, that which we imagine when we dream of the Mediterranean. And the unique quiet of old places; the piercing coolness of the centuries-old streets. If it sounds like enchantment, it’s because I’m explaining myself well.
There, there is an lodging as unexpected as it is perfect: the Franciscan Convent. I won’t talk about it now, because I have already written about it at length. Just a stroke: it is an old convent transformed into a luxury boutique hotel. And the only place to live this escape if one truly wants to immerse oneself in the spirit of Cilento.
