From a square in the town of Castellabate, on Italy’s Cilento coast, you can gaze up over the rim of your cappuccino and drink in a panorama of sky and Mediterranean Sea from Salerno to the Gulf of Policastro. Looking down, a fruity plain of vineyards, lemons and white figs extends to the sides of green mountains covered in wisps of steam.
At the same point, in 1811, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, appointed king of Naples at the beginning of the nineteenth century, pronounced the words that the city has engraved on its town hall: “No one dies here”. Simply put, you don’t die here.
Naturally, people die in Cilento, a region south of the Amalfi Coast. But they also live longer than others, thanks to the Mediterranean Diet, studied for the first time in these parts. It is more accurate to say that eternal life is a more attractive proposition here.
