There’s something about the southern part of almost any country that rouses mixed feelings in people. An overweening sense of pride in those who live there seems to be set against a particular kind of bias from outsiders.

I have friends who live in Italy who talk about a common phrase uttered by those who live in and around the northern city of Milan. The phrase is, “There’s no life south of the Po.”

In terms of geography, the Po River runs roughly west to east across northern Italy. At its closest point, it streams less than 50 miles just south of Milan – meaning that the Po sits some nearly 800 miles from Palizzi, Italy’s southernmost city.

That’s a lot of country to discount.

I heard a similar story from a former colleague who hails from New Zealand. She repeated the same kind of phrase she says is popular with those who live in Auckland, which sits in the far north of the country’s northern island. Since Auckland is a little more than 1,000 miles from Invercargill, New Zealand’s southernmost city, well … you get the point.

The Italians and Kiwis aren’t alone in their prejudices, of course. The U.S. isn’t much better. A former colleague of my wife’s – an author and nationally recognized legal scholar – was born in Florida. He has a distinct southern accent, and he talks about the year he taught in San Francisco and the prejudiced attitudes he faced there just because of the way he talks.

I write all this as a way to begin talking about the city of Reggio Calabria, a city my wife Mary Pat and I made an overnight visit to in the summer of 2018. We had just finished a weeklong stay in the Aeolian Islands, which are located just north of the eastern peninsula of Sicily.

We took a ferry from the main island in the group, Lipari, to the Sicilian city of Messina. After a short layover, we took a second ferry to the port at Reggio Calabria, where we’d booked a room in the city center.

Arriving in the early afternoon, we went out for what the Italians call a passeggiata. And to be honest, I was underwhelmed. While most Italian cities I’ve visited have rough areas – Naples, especially – you’re apt to find parts that live up to the country’s reputation for beauty. That doesn’t apply as much to the center of Reggio Calabria, which the word gritty seems much more fitting than rough.

That should come as no surprise to anyone. Here’s how the city is described on its Wikipedia page: “Sadly, it holds the record of the worst city in terms of quality of life for environmental and cultural parameters, ranking among the worst Italian cities for quality of life.”

Here is a link to that ranking.

In 2012, the New York Times published a story that was headlined “Corruption Is Seen as a Drain on Italy’s South.” The reporter, Rachel Donadio, was then the paper’s Rome bureau chief, and her story centered on how funds meant to improve life had been stolen by the area’s organized crime group called the “’Ndrangheta (pronounced en-DRANG-get-ah).”

Donadio’s story focused on Italy’s national highway, the A3, a project that had been started in the 1960s and was still unfinished. “Nothing,” she wrote, “embodies the failures of the Italian state more neatly than the highway from Salerno to Reggio Calabria.”

How so? “Perilous, two-lane bridges span mountain ravines high above the sea,” she wrote, “while unlit tunnels leak in the rain – and occasionally drop concrete and other building materials onto passing cars.”

So, it’s true: Like the miniseries “Gomorrah,” not to mention the 2008 feature film of the same title – both of which are centered in Naples – the Italian corruption we see portrayed on big and little screens is based on reality. And much of it is blamed on the country’s southern regions.

But let me provide another view. I’ve written in the past about our exploits in Sicily, keying on the restaurant owner who was so kind to us following a minor – yet disturbing – car accident. That incident occurred just outside the city of Catania.

Our experience in Reggio Calabria was much the same. We ended up hiring a taxi from the airport to our hotel. Not only was the woman driver able to understand our poor Italian enough to take us where we wanted to go, but she promised to pick us up the next morning and return us so that we could make our flight to Rome. And true to her word, despite all the language difficulties, she was there.

During our passeggiata, which included a stop at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria – a place featuring a fascinating display of prehistoric exhibits – we mingled among the crowds that filled the streets. We witnessed a show on the city’s promenade and joined in with the spectators who applauded the singers and dancers.

When it came time for dinner, Mary Pat checked her Google listings of restaurant recommendations. That led us to L'A Gourmet L'Accademia, a place that the Michelin Guide describes as “definitely the best restaurant in town.”

We had little hope that we’d get a table. But at 7 p.m. it was early, at least by Italian standards, and the gentleman who met us – suggested (again, in Italian) that we return in a short while and that he would have a table ready for us.

And when we returned, he led us to a table with a panoramic view. And as has happened so many other times, we had a superb meal – with the service every bit as satisfying as the food.

That is the memory that I have of Reggio Calabria – an experience I consider an example of some good old southern hospitality, Italian style.