Calcata is a beautiful and curious medieval village set atop fourhundredfifty-foot cliffs. Due to the Italian bureaucracy, it is a veritable counterculture coven. I visited Calcata for the first time after having read the book »An Irreverent Curiosity« by David Farley in 2010. It’s a weird and wonderful tale of conspiracy and misadventure. Five years later I came back to Calcata. The village hasn’t changed a lot, only lost some colours. If you want to visit Calcata, first enjoy a good coffee at the Bar Da Giusy di Mureddu Giuseppina.
»In December 1983, a priest in the Italian hill town of Calcata shared shocking news with his congregation: the pride of their town, the foreskin of Jesus, had been stolen. Some postulated that it had been stolen by Satanists. Some said the priest himself was to blame. Some even pointed their fingers at the Vatican. In 2006, travel writer David Farley moved to Calcata, determined to find the missing foreskin, or at least find out the truth behind its disappearance. Farley recounts how the relic passed from Charlemagne to the papacy to a marauding sixteenth-century German solider before finally ending up in Calcata, where miracles occurred that made the sleepy town a major pilgrimage destination.« – An Irreverent Curiosity, David Farley
