From Fuscaldo to Cicala, passing through Bianchi: these are the three Calabrian municipalities that share the same patron saint, San Giacomo Maggiore Apostolo, and which are now also united by an administrative act. With Council Resolution no. 50 of 17 February 2026, the Calabria Region recognized the Cammino di San Giacomo as an itinerary of regional interest, pursuant to regional law no. 12/2023 which regulates the recognition of Calabrian paths.
The route: from the sea to Sila
The route measures approximately 141 kilometres, distributed over nine stages, and crosses the territory between the provinces of Cosenza and Catanzaro. It starts from the sea, in Fuscaldo, climbs inland up to Bianchi, the green heart of Sila Piccola, where the cult of San Giacomo is handed down through popular rites and processions, and finally converges on Cicala, in the province of Catanzaro. It is here that the journey finds its symbolic point: in the Church of San Giacomo Maggiore Apostolo, which houses the statue of the saint and where pilgrims are given the Testimoniumthe certificate that ideally closes the journey and connects it to the great European Jacobean tradition, up to Santiago de Compostela.
Who manages the path
The managing body identified by the resolution is the association “Pellegrini di Speranza sulla Via di San Giacomo in Calabria APS”, based in Cicala and chaired by Don Sergio Polito. It is the association that organized the inauguration of the path, on 13 June 2026, starting from Bianchi (not from Fuscaldo, as one might think by reading only the description of the complete route) and arriving in Cicala, where the statue of the saint was carried in procession to the mother church for the blessing of Monsignor Claudio Maniago, archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace.
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Beyond faith: development of internal areas
Beyond the religious component, the project aims to become a development infrastructure for the internal areas, a real reception network involving accommodation facilities, hiking guides, local producers and municipal administrations, on the model already tested by other Italian and European routes which have become drivers of the so-called “slow tourism”, promoted in areas at high risk of depopulation.
