Connecting the dots of a forgotten Italy. From the site of the "Passion of the Christ" in Basilicata to the "City of Toys" in Lombardy and the forgotten mines of Sardinia near Arbus: this is the journey so dear to Urban Explorers that they dare to defy death at every turn and must be carefully managed.
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Traveling the length and breadth of Italy—and sometimes even Europe—you sometimes come across unimaginable realities: ghost towns, which occasionally resurface due to more or less occasional accidents.
The news from mid-December 2025 reports a fatal accident in Alzano Lombardo, Bergamo. A nineteen-year-old fell into the void at the former Italcementi plant, once the domain of the Pesenti family. He is one of thousands of urban explorers who comb through dozens of buildings classified as essential landmarks in the network of industrial architecture landmarks.
It's a new hobby, which we could almost call a "sport" because it takes a truly physically fit person to climb roofs, chimneys, flues, gutters, and so on. The challenges involve mastering buildings that have made some special history over the centuries and have often become dilapidated and... inviolable.
The map of those dots touches every region. That's right: every one! A few examples, moving up the peninsula: from Pentedattilo (a hand-shaped village clinging to the rock) in Calabria to Roscigno Vecchia in Campania; from the ghostly Craco—remember Francesco Rosi's "Christ Stopped at Eboli" and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"?—in Basilicata to Civita di Bagnoregio in Lazio; from Fabbriche di Careggine in Tuscany to Balestrino in Liguria; from Ingurtosu in Sardinia to Consonno in Lombardy, in addition to the aforementioned Alzano.
Urban explorers often join clubs, which in turn become an integral part of an ever-moving community. The adrenaline that drives the modern explorer to continually push their limits also involves gathering paper documents, such as the company's articles of association that established a given activity, the deed of purchase or sale of the property, the building's land registry, a sign found who knows where, newspaper clippings... "Special" initiatives emerge, manifesting themselves in caps, T-shirts, decals, and paintings based on photographs taken with skill and taste.
All this led us to Olginate, near Lecco, where the "proven" road begins that leads to Consonno, a village its founder envisioned as the "City of Toys" during the economic boom of Italy, which was emancipating itself from the Second World War. The creator was Mario Bagno, Count of Valle dell'Olmo: an entrepreneur of Piedmontese origin (Vercelli) who was very active in road reconstruction and the construction of infrastructure designed to foster the country's rebirth.
On a Radio24 broadcast, the voice of that visionary was revived, describing what the Las Vegas of Brianza he had in mind would be like: "We will level that half-hill to design, in the shadow of the Resegone, the most enjoyable racetrack in the world; we will build a hotel with an ice rink around it, a tower visible from afar, a playground, a zoo with friendly animals...", Conte Bagno can be heard saying.
Leafing through some magazines stored in a box in the cellar, we found some clippings from L'Espresso depicting the ambitious project of the "Città dei Balocchi", a forerunner of the miniature version proposed in Como before the controversial mayor Alessandro Rapinese evicted it from Lungolago Trento and Trieste and then had it snatched away by the neighboring Canton of Ticino (Switzerland).
Bagno, speaking on the radio, appears in magazines of the time wearing a light-colored overcoat, sunglasses, and a narrow-brimmed hat. A true entrepreneur, he's in some ways difficult to fully understand because the line between reality and fantasy is so blurred. Every sentence he makes about the project ends with the emblematic "if we have the chance...", which means everything and may conceal presumed financial or structural difficulties.
The fact is that Borgo di Bagno, commonly known as Borgo Consonno, came to life, and with it came a few nocturnal escapades for those seeking paid entertainment. The Count purchased the property in 1962 from a wealthy landowner family from the Lecco area, a synthesis of the Vergas and the Anghileris. He cleared the land, began construction, and overcame an initial obstacle in 1966 due to a landslide, as well as a second one ten years later, in 1976. The local residents, who had abandoned Olginate when agricultural activity began to decline, returned to find employment in the City of Toys.
Business inexorably declined. Over the years, the hotel was transformed into a hospice and then closed. The Borgo became a ghost town. Farewell, the Las Vegas of Brianza. And for the locals, the visionary Count Bagno became "Count Amen." The end. The final blow was dealt by the creators of a rave party that lasted three days and three nights. Now we go on a... pilgrimage. Full stop.
As was generally the case with all other villages that had become inanimate, Consonno too had to bow to the forces of insolently violated nature and to economic factors, which inevitably ran parallel and led to the abandonment of the town by its inhabitants. In a word: depopulation.
TSI – Italian Swiss Television – has produced a video that talks more about “Count Amen” and less about “Count Bagno,” who passed away fifteen years ago (1995) at the ripe old age of 94. Real Player helps anyone curious to uncover the new, sad reality of Consonno. Experiencing the situation firsthand is like receiving a punch in the stomach, as is walking towards Ingurtosu, in Arbus, in southern Sardinia, stripped to the bone and abandoned to its fate. That mining area is north of Iglesias and south of Arborea. The Giro d'Italia introduced us to it. And it captivated us because of the stories, once marked by export wealth, that gradually slipped into the sadness of the abandonment of the mines and their people.
The Ghost Town map isn't just intriguing. Unfortunately, it highlights situations steeped in despair.
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