The Air Malta stop at Reggio Calabria being a thing of the past, I had to switch to catamaran, bus and train to reach Reggio. The diesel railcar going south on the Ionian line ran through Melito Porto Salvo, the southernmost town on mainland Italy. On the beach beyond the station, a bare concrete needle marked the landing place of Giuseppe Garibaldi on his ill-fated second landing in 1862.

Between Melito and the highest point in Aspromonte – Montalto (1955m) – there is an area known as La Grecanica, so called as the inhabitants retain a Greek dialect, quite distinct from standard dialetto calabrese.

Some 25km after rounding Capo Spartivento I dropped off at Bovalino. In a few minutes a bus arrived in the station square and set off for S. Luca, 12km up the valley of the Fiumara Bonamico. S. Luca, reckoned to be an indrangheta citadel and also the birthplace of the writer Corrado Alvaro (his best-known work: Gente in Aspromonte), is closely connected with the Santuario della Madonna di Polsi, said to have been founded by monks of the Byzantine rite in 1144 and situated in a deep bowl near the centre of Aspromonte.

The S. Luca parish priest, at the time Don Pino Strangio, also acts as Il Superiore at Polsi. For some weeks around the feast day of Madonna di Polsi, on September 2, he is in residence at the sanctuary.

The dancing was cut short by the appearance at the church portal of the processional statue of Madonna di Polsi

The bus stopped before reaching the main square, and a short walk carried me up to the public water sources in the square, with the inevitable group of people taking on water – few seem to trust the house water supply in the place. There was a very unusual car parked close by: a Chevrolet the size of a small aircraft carrier, decked out as a ‘wedding wagon’, complete with New York number plates and an idling V-8, 5.7 litre engine. A trickle of people was coming into the square from the direction of the parish church; a bridesmaid was throwing a tantrum on being prevented from getting a drink from the public source. In a few minutes, the bride and bridegroom turned up, the bride having some difficulty getting her voluminous light blue train into the car; the chauffer emerged from a café, put on a jacket, and drove off, followed by the customary train of hooting cars.

I did not dare take any pictures – the reputation of the people of the place for easily taking offense was too daunting.

I put off departure to late afternoon, to avoid the worst of the heat. Alas, I had forgotten the details of that particular road: a relentless three-hour climb, with only short stretches of shade after early morning, past the grey molar of Pietra Cappa.

At the very top of the rise, two parked cars disgorged a group of people as I walked up: seeing me huffing and puffing and running with sweat, they thought I was about to faint. I assured them I was more or less still in one piece but, having exhausted both my water-bottles on the way up, I said I could do with some water if they had any to spare. They offered a two-litre bottle; someone said there was a watering point some way down the Polsi-direct road, in any case. So I set off down the left fork, on what I expected to be a short sharp stroll down to the church.

Panoramic view of the town of Polsi.

An hour later there was still no sign of Polsi and the light had almost gone. Coming to a bridge, there was a stretch of level cement below road level where I set up sleeping mat and bag; I dozed off, helped by the complete silence of the surrounding woods. There was not even a civetta (little owl) to be heard.

Well before dawn, flickering lights and female voices on the road above woke me up: a group of pilgrims reciting the Rosary while walking to Polsi. They filed past, mercifully without anyone looking over the parapet; I kept quiet, doing my utmost not to cough or sneeze until they were well away, before slipping back into a final snooze. At first light, I was up, packed and setting off.

After about an hour at a fast pace, I overtook the women who were dawdling along, some of them with children in pushchairs. They had left S. Luca at midnight to avoid the heat and expected to get to Polsi by about mid-morning. When told that I had been sleeping under the arch, they apologised for waking me up.

After answering the usual questions about provenance I continued coming to the last cruel climb, round a sharp corner and into the sacred precinct of Polsi, now barred to any form of wheeled transport.

The pedestrian area around the santuario was full of people drawn there by the bell tolling for mid-day Mass, with Don Pino as celebrant.

Afterwards I went into the convent to check on accommodation, trusting to a reservation by e-mail some weeks before. No luck: a notice said quite bluntly that there were no vacancies left. So I wandered back downstairs, poking my nose into every likely place, until I located a store-room where I could leave the big rucksack. An extensive search of the surrounds for a likely place to sleep in proved fruitless.

Back at the convent I, with many others, unrolled a sleeping mat in the corridor under the arches on the third floor: not a bad solution all told. The only problem was the loud chatter and laughter in the courtyard below into the early hours.

The next day broke grey and drizzly. I stayed in my bag until most of the other sleeping people in the corridors had vanished and then went out to for a quick soak in the Buonamico, where it was coming down a side valley. But other pilgrims, staying in shacks without washing facilities, had had the same idea. I had to make do with a hand and face wash at a public spring.

Back on the church parvis, a small group of musicians, with guitar, accordion and cymbals, were playing lively tunes, with energetic couples giving vigorous exhibitions of the tarantella and other folk dances. The dancing was cut short by the bell ringing for mass, and the appearance at the church portal of the processional statue of Madonna di Polsi. The original, covered in votive offerings, is kept securely locked in a glass case inside the church.

High Mass was to be celebrated in an amphitheatre catering for a very large congregation. Places were rapidly filling up already; I just managed to find a seat a few steps up at the right end of the semi-circle. Two carabinieri in ceremonial dress stood on either flank of the altar.

There were victims on both sides, the youngest being Don Pino’s 17- year-old nephew

The chief celebrant was the then-bishop of Locri-Gerace, Giuseppe Fiorini Morosini, aided by Don Pino and three other priests, two of them from central Africa. Morosini preached the sermon: he started off with a blast against “certain sections of the press”, for allegedly castigating the Church for “being soft on mafia and ndrangheta and failing to condemn them roundly”.

“This we will never do,” he thundered. “We will never despise people.” Morosini insisted on the wide gulf between divine and civil justice — hardly an emphasis likely to improve the support for civil authority in such a place as his diocese, not to mention in Polsi itself, where the weeklong celebrations were allegedly used to cover indrangheta summit meetings.

Despite much assertion that this habit had died out, police did have wind that, after a member of the S. Luca clan was murdered in Duisburg, Germany, back in 2007, an indrangheta chief from another town had been roped in to persuade the warring factions to call a truce, if not a permanent peace. Place and time was Polsi during the September 2007 feast.

The closing oration by Don Pino was long, flowery and flamboyant; but there was no mistaking the anguish in his voice when recollecting the Duisberg killing, by then five years past. There were victims on both sides, the youngest being Don Pino’s 17-year-old nephew.

Don Pino’s final moving plea was for a spirit of forgiveness to take hold of those of the congregation still driven by feelings of revenge.

After a long lunch at one of the many restaurants, I retired to a quiet place on the hillside behind the church for a long read. There was no chance of getting a seat on any of the few minibuses that, in the face of a strong counter-current of private cars, had dared to come down. In late afternoon, I managed to find one place on a minibus going west from Polsi to Gambarie, the tourist resort above Reggio.

On the following day I walked west to the Garibaldi museum, marking the site where the hero’s second march on Rome was stopped by Piedmontese troops.