Ferruzzano Superiore: ghost town

Among the streets of the ghost town of Ferruzzano

We wander in silence through the empty streets of the abandoned village, overhanging the cliff. Stone steps, little houses with broken roofs leaning against each other, aristocratic houses with rich stone portals... Sometimes the empty windows give us a glimpse of interiors that seem to have been recently abandoned. There is still a few overturned chairs, some broken furniture: humble traces of the peasant civilization that flourished here. The church with its collapsed roof keeps its sacredness intact. On one wall a red inscription stands out: "Ferruzzano, you are like first love: you can't forget it."

The story: the 1907 earthquake and abandonment

On the night of October 23, 1907, at 9:25 p.m. the village was devastated by the first terrible tremor of an earthquake that razed houses and killed 175 people. It was decided to rebuild in the nearby hamlet of Saccuti, but today it, too, is abandoned (except for a few daring families still holding on). The causes: heavy emigration in the 1950s that halved the population and the flood that dealt the final blow in the 1970s.

Not to be missed: the view

The melancholy charm of any abandoned hamlet is unquestionable, but Ferruzzano has something more. It was built on an impassable cliff about 470 meters above sea level to escape Saracen assaults, and from up there the view of the Ionian Sea and Aspromonte fills the eyes with beauty. The highest point, called Calvary, offers a magnificent 360-degree view.

Why it is special: traces of the Neolithic

The area where the town of Ferruzzano Superiore was built has a history far older than the Saracens. Our guides Santo and Orlando point out at the highest point of the village small piling holes and steps carved into the rock: evidence of the presence of a settlement in the Neolithic period (8000-3500 B.C.)! But there is more. We stop in front of the ruins of a "cave-house," built on a pre-existing cave, which has even more ancient origins. Among the dried leaves and fallen beams, the rock reveals short, diagonal blows: made, that is, with stone (not iron) tools, in use in the Paleolithic period. Thank you, Santo and Orlando, for giving us a way to see the invisible!

Fun fact: from abandoned hamlet to film set

Resilience is a human being's gift. Ferruzzano, abandoned for decades, on several occasions has come back to life as a set for short films and TV series: Agarthi, a story not to be told (2015); Rica, the last great story (2016); San Remo: pale flower (2017); Nautilus (2021), works by Calabrian artist Bruno Panuzzo; ZeroZeroZero (2018, from Roberto Saviano's novel) and Via dall'Aspromonte (2018, from Pietro Criaco's book.