Way of San Nilo, Cilento challenges Santiago

In the green (and blue) heart of Campania, the Cilento, suspended between mountains and hills lush with woods and a crystal clear sea, a journey in stages has come to life on the model of that of Santiago, destined to capture the attention of outdoor tourism enthusiasts from all over the world: the Way of San Nilo.

The reason for the success is simple: over one hundred kilometers of unspoiled naturelargely through the territory of the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni Natural Park, from Sapri to Palinuro, the latter famous coastal resort, which takes its name from the mythical helmsman of Aeneas.

The route winds through 8 stages that touch 14 villages with a thousand-year history, among breathtaking landscapes, rivers and waterfalls, along which you can rediscover cordial atmospheres and the excellence of genuine and refined food and wine craftsmanship. The Way is also concentrated in beauty from an artistic and archaeological point of view, which in some sections requires a certain amount of training, but in many others it is within reach of all legs.

The landscape context is so fascinating that right in Palinuro, and Vanity announces it to you in preview, the great soprano and actress Katia Ricciarelli will star in a short film dedicated to the magic of singing.

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Experiential tourism is booming, and this magnificent itinerary is an opportunity to make it explode throughout the South. As anyone who has done other stages in stages knows well, when a journey lasts for several days, it becomes a world in itself. There is life “in” the journey, and life “outside” the journey. The people who travel it create an invisible river of emotions, within which new rules apply: time changes rhythm, the mind becomes lighter, one begins to breathe nature and to rediscover synchrony with the surrounding world, rediscovering the essential simplicity of pleasure.

Other realities of outdoor tourism are also emerging in the Campania hinterland: the cycle path that will go from the Bourbon palace of Carditello to the Taburno Park, for example. A route whose fulcrum will be Dugenta (a locality in Sannio which boasts one of the oldest and most renowned summer gastronomic festivals in Italy, the Wild Boar Festival), and which Mayor Di Cerbo announces as «one of the largest cycling routes of Europe”.

But at this point we ask ourselves: is it possible that other routes join the Way of San Nilo, expanding its course? Second Mimmo Pandolfiformer president of the FIE, yes: «La European Ramblers Association approved the Mediterranean Path project. Costa d’Amalfi and Cilento will be connected, creating an excursion axis of exceptional importance.» And Rosario Pirrone, mayor of Centola-Palinuro, adds: «We will decline the path in every way, with an eye to soft mobility and all the activities that open up outdoor tourism to the elderly and frail people».

In the end, Silvano Cerulli, tireless president of the Pro Loco of Palinuro, formulates a wish that we cannot fail to share: «Slow, experiential tourism, linked to nature, is not only the frontier of modern tourism and a powerful economic and employment driver, but it is a lifestyle , a way to ally ourselves with nature, instead of exploiting it with the consequences that we are all seeing.»

Welcome to the Camino di San Nilo, then: where the future is rooted in myth.