Held on 24 August 2026 at the Horcynus Orca Foundation and moderated jointly by the INSPIRE project manager and the president of Slow Food Messina, the discussion avoided formal presentations in favour of direct dialogue. Residents who've returned to villages like Pezzolo pointed to a basic gap: no bar, no restaurant, no minimum services, meaning no realistic way to host visitors yet, whatever the cultural value of the place. Organisers of the Cammino dell'Anima (Path of the Soul), an existing 125-kilometre, seven-stage trail from Dinnammare to Tindari, argued this kind of infrastructure is exactly what new experiential routes could be built on, rather than starting from nothing.

Agricultural recovery featured directly: Cuccìtta, a native soft wheat variety that once fed local communities, has returned to cultivation in Pezzolo, including a revival of traditional threshing. Local wine producers were blunt about the constraints they actually face, logistics costs and a fragmented offer, arguing that networking among small producers isn't optional but a condition for survival, a point echoed by the local tourism technical institute, which framed training as essential to turning heritage into something visitors can actually be shown and explained. The evening closed with a tasting of local products and wine, and a reminder that INSPIRE's "Local Pact" mechanism is meant to keep this coordination going after EU funding ends, with Local Living Labs planned in the area over the coming months.

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