Below the deep blue Mediterranean, above, on the slope, small villages – that is the Cilento, south of Naples. A surprising number of 100-year-olds live in these enchanted gems. Why do people here live so long and so calmly? Our reporter went on the trail.
By Claudio Rizello
The fact that we come to research, i.e. to work, is a bad thing. Some villagers shake their heads in greeting. They sit with Jerry on wicker chairs that belong to the bar and from which they look over the fig tree into the bay. You have to go on holiday here, they say, but not work! The setting sun bathes the ridiculously beautiful place in orange light, a wild bush on the church tower sways in the evening wind. Below, a woman nimbly picks capers from the bush. Pollica in Cilento, 2,200 inhabitants, two and a half hours’ drive from Naples down the winding coast. The region has the Italian word for slow in its name, lento. That’s how life works here.