It was a beautiful sunny morning, so we grabbed our cameras, jumped in the car & headed south
for San Severino.
Perched precariously above the Mingardo river,
this 'borgo medievale' dates back to the
10th century and thrived on trade with Bulgaria.
The first sight of it (in the photo above)
took our breath away.
The hamlet began to be abandoned at the end
of the 19th century, when the railway was built in the valley below, but some homes remained occupied until 1977, although the state of disrepair
gives the appearance of having been
abandoned long before that.
We stopped for a coffee in a bar in
'modern' San Severino before
discovering that the footpath up to
the borgo was barricaded &
off limits to the public.
But hey, we're English, and we didn't
understand the signs, did we?
So we climbed up, exploring the ruins
and admiring the views.....
And what we found when we reached the
end of Via Croce just totally blew me away....