I've explored my country, Italy, far and wide for years. Every time I had to travel from Milan to my parents' house in Calabria, officially 1,180 km, I chose a different route. I rarely took the highway, much more often I chose alternative and even arduous routes, traversing mountains and valleys or driving along Italy's winding coastline. This allowed me to get to know my country in its most remote corners. I slept in the car, to maximize exploration and minimize costs. Sometimes it took me four days to get to Calabria. Something everyone, from Milan, does in 12-14 hours at most. But never have I been able to get to know Italy as deeply as when I did a photojournalistic story. I had to focus on a smaller location for days, interviewing locals and trying to see things, through my camera, far beyond the visible.
The topic of the article assigned to me by National Geographic touched on some of the cities Italians knew little or nothing about. So, I had to venture into new valleys and new roads, reaching places unfamiliar even to me, who thought I knew my country in depth. But there's always something deeper, I'd say, correct?
The time I spent in Matera, in a "cave" in an area named Sassi, will forever remain etched in my memory. The first night I didn't sleep. The silence of the cave room was such that, constantly listening to the slightest rustle, which never happened, I couldn't fall asleep. It was, however, a wonderful feeling of silence. Since then, I've returned to Matera dozens of times to meet the people I'd met then. I've organized National Geographic Expeditions educational tours, introducing hundreds of Americans to this unusual jewel of Southern Italy.