Italy's Ghost Towns

Bill and Elizabeth's road trip through Sicily's near-forgotten comunes...

(Elizabeth inspects Sicily’s forgotten towns. Photo: Bill)

Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Paris, France...

After the wedding, we decided to do some exploration.  We were intrigued by two towns – Castiglione di Sicilia…and Troina.

The former aroused our curiosity as we drove through the lava fields around Mount Etna. There it was, on the top of a hill…far above the grape vineyards and wine groves below. And when we looked it up on the internet, we discovered that it was offering free houses. So, we decided to see for ourselves.  

The other town, Troina, is interesting because it was the capital of the first Norman kingdom of Sicily and also because General George Patton waged a major battle there, in WWII, for control of the city.

Both cities lie on the fringes of Mt. Etna, on what was known, in WWII, as the “Etna Line” which the Germans/Italians had fortified to stop the Allied advance towards Italy. We decided to do a circuit.

It did not take us long to discover that the interior of Sicily, in July, can be very hot, very dry, and very empty. But this discovery did not come until we realized that the whole country can also be very trashy. It reminded us of Latin America.  Trash along the roads. Rusty tin. Unfinished buildings. The most striking thing however, at least along the coast, is the proliferation of low-rise apartment buildings…each apartment with its own balcony…each looks as though it were built in the ‘60s or ‘70s…and each is very ugly.

A National Emergency

Who lives in these places, we wondered? Italy’s population is falling. The average Italian woman has only 1.1 children – barely half as many as are needed to keep the population stable. The government has declared it a national emergency.  

Many small towns look abandoned. In the countryside, too, many old houses – including some very grand relics of the 19^th century – are in ruins. The situation is so desperate that the towns are trying to attract residents by offering houses for free. Would we want to live in one? We decided to find out.  

We headed south to Catania and then west up across the hilly country on the other side of Mt. Etna. Once away from the coast, there was almost no traffic. A driver, however, has to stay alert. The road switches back and forth, working its way up to the higher ground.   

At the lower elevations are groves of olives and lemons…not especially well maintained. Then, as you get closer to Troina, the fields open up to more serious cultivation, with large, industrial-scale agriculture…and then, on the hillsides, to pleasant farms of wheat, hay, and other field crops. Often, the hills are so steep, it’s hard to see how tractors can get around; you see tire marks in the most improbable, and possibly dangerous places.

(Photo: Bill)

Tony’s Tale…

The countryside is much prettier and less cluttered than the cities on the coast. Many old barns are abandoned. Houses too. Sheep and cattle graze. Farmsteads look well cared for.   

After about an hour of driving, Troina appeared on the top of a mountain ahead.  At this point, we were beginning to ask questions. What in the world is the town doing there? The ground around it does not appear especially fertile or productive.  Why would Norman raiders go there? And why did Gen. Patton bother to attack it? For all we can tell, it had no military importance at all.

We got a glimpse of what it must have been like to be one of Patton’s footsoldiers from a friend, many years ago. His name was Tony Caramela. He had been with the US troops that invaded Sicily…and then the boot of Italy.  

I was driving a jeep. We saw a sign that pointed to “Caramela.” So, I had to drive over there. I didn’t even know there was such a town, but it must have been where we were from.

I got there…I didn’t speak very good Italian, but enough to get around. I parked the jeep and showed a local guy my dog tags.

He asked what my father’s name was…and I told him. And then he said...

‘Luigi!’ And it turned out he was my father’s cousin. And then dozens of people came out to meet us. They were all cousins...aunts…uncles…and they invited us to dinner…and made a pasta. It was great. Just like my grandmother used to make. No kidding.

After a couple of hours explaining what had happened to us in America, I had to get back to my unit. But when I came back to the jeep…all the wheels were missing.

At that point, my cousin started yelling… ‘How can you do that to our cousin Luigi’…or something like that. And pretty soon, some guys came back with the wheels and put them back on.

(Photo: Bill)

When the War Was Over

The place seemed so marginal...so out-of-the way, it was hard to see why the Normans would have made it their headquarters. Even more improbable was that the US army would turn it into a battleground.

But there were photos to prove it. Along the main street at the top of the ridge, there were photos of US soldiers relaxing on the city ramparts after the battle. There is also a photo of Italian soldiers surrendering to them. Curiously, the Italians look pretty happy with themselves. They did their duty; now their war was over.

There is also a bronze statue of the man who took the photos – Robert Capa. Capa was a civilian, the only civilian photographer at the Omaha beach landing, for example. He took photos, many of them famous, for US magazines. He died in 1954 when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.

A museum in Troina advertises a full complement of Capa’s photos. But on this point, the tourist must be alert. Almost all museums, churches and other places you might like to visit are closed – at least when you want to visit them. This is probably a consequence of the fact that these are tourist attractions, but there are no tourists to be attracted to them.

Making our way up into town was not easy. You drive up, around, up…and up some more, through the narrow and twisty streets. And then you realize that you are stuck. You cannot go forward; the road is too narrow. And going back is treacherous. You are likely to slip off the steep, polished cobblestones and end up far below, upside down.

It was in such a predicament that we found ourselves in Troina, when a local woman happened upon the scene. This was remarkable in itself since we had seen no living human for the last half hour…and none in the town of Troina. It was a hot day. And it was 2 in the afternoon, so we assumed that they were all inside, avoiding the heat.

We asked her in Spanish…then in English. She understood neither, but got the gist of our question and suggested that we back up very slowly…and park the car along the side of the road, and walk up to the old part of town.  

Elizabeth got out of the car to guide us down, and after a few minutes, we were safely ensconced. The woman had meanwhile disappeared into the warren of medieval passage-ways...so we followed the main street. 

Silence.

No cars. No voices. No air conditioners. No TVs.

The Loneliest Bartender in Town

And yet, there must have been some humans. While many of the houses appeared to be unused or abandoned, many were not. There were automobiles parked here and there…we had no idea how they got there. And many houses were handsome…with heavy stone, often adorned with crests or emblems. Some houses were marked ‘vende’ …many others would probably be for sale if the effort didn’t seem so futile. Just as there were no tourists, nor were there any eager real estate buyers. No one is going to ‘flip’ a house in Troina.

After thus walking up and up along the main drag, we finally came upon a mother and her daughter. They were in front of a large, institutional building that looked like it had been put up in the post-war years. The town seems to have enjoyed a building boom in the ‘60s…mostly repairing what was done by the US 1st Infantry.

“Stop doing that,” the woman said to her daughter.

The girl, about 14 or 15, was beating her head against a sign post.  

Elizabeth read the sign.

“That’s a home for retarded children,” she explained.

We walked on. Finally reaching the town center, there was a museum, closed. There was also a Norman-era church…also closed. The town square featured tables, with umbrellas and chairs arranged on the plaza, so we could imagine happy people enjoying a café. But you had to use your imagination; the square was as empty of people as the rest of the town.

But there was a “pub”…and the door was open. We went in. The place was clean and spacious, with a wood paneled bar and comfy booths with picture windows looking out over Mt. Etna and miles of empty countryside. Again, we could imagine how nice it would be…if there were people in it. But there were no customers, just a young man tending the bar for no one.

We ordered two espressos.  

“I can’t see why anyone would want to live here,” said Elizabeth. “You’d feel like a rat in an abandoned city.”

Regards,

Bill Bonner