The Red Cross is an iconic place for urbex lovers.
It is a summer camp dedicated to children between 6 and 12 years of about 1000 square meters.
Red Cross is an invented name, but I believe it gets its name from the giant red cross painted on the church ceiling inside it, even though it has now been faded by time.
I haven’t found much about history, but in the early 1900s that area was considered a real paradise for children.
The summer colonies sprang up numerous and around 1950 the Red Cross was also built.
It is located near a wood, in a very peaceful setting which makes it ideal for the holidays of the very young.
Very popular in the 1960s, the Red Cross was expanded with additional dormitories.
Considering the Italian historical period is not very easy, the colonies are a good alternative for working class families and less well-off.
Those who could not or did not want to afford a vacation with their children sent them to a colony, where the cost of room and board was very low.
Life in the colony must have been boring enough compared to our day.
We woke up in the midst of other children inside the dormitories on the second floor, breakfast in the large common room in the basement, mass in the church on the first floor and then all outside to play in the square.
However, there was no shortage of trips to the surrounding area in order to break the summer monotony.
Meanwhile, the years pass and people’s lifestyles inevitably change, so the once necessary colonies go out of fashion.
The Red Cross closed in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Watching the videos online, you can find everything, but mostly the topic is the paranormal.
According to the ghost hunters, the colony is supposed to be haunted by dead children … but there is not even a newspaper article about it.
As far as I’m concerned I found the Red Cross lonely and beautiful.
The yellow church with its large cross on the red ceiling still has benches arranged in two orderly rows.
Just as the children’s beds in the dormitory are still tidy, with their mattresses and bedside tables.
The common bathrooms still have all the doors, even if they are marked by time, and in one of these there is a plant and a plant.
The size of this tree really makes us understand how long it has been forgotten and left to itself.
I do not think there will be a happy ending for the Red Cross, for now there are no recovery interventions or redevelopments of any kind.
If you love abandoned colonies at this link you can see my explorations.
