Walking in Abruzzo. Stuart Haines

      Corno Piccolo from the west ridge of Corno Grande (Walk 14)

      The soft clatter of an old tractor draws your gaze to the valley floor. It is moving slowly down a white lane through strips of lentil and potato fields, along the route of the famous Sentiero Italia – a footpath that runs from the Dolomites to the tip of Sicily. Not that you can imagine undertaking such a walk when there is so much to be explored in just the landscape you can see!

      Imperceptibly, the far ridges turn to abstract layers of green, blue and purple, capped by the reddening sky. The peaks of the Maiella and the Abruzzo national parks, way south, grow a little larger as they become silhouettes on the horizon. Wispy cloud has gathered on the shoulders of Monte Amaro, the crown of the Maiella massif and, at 2800m, the region’s second highest point. You look away and then back – it has gone as quickly as it formed.

      The Peligna basin, separating the three national parks, lies below the steep west slopes of the Maiella. It’s too dark now to make out Sulmona, the main town of central Abruzzo, but tomorrow you will walk towards it. In two days’ time you will arrive there, tired and a little regretful, to spend your last night before catching the train back to Rome.

      A church bell tolls in Castel del Monte, a few kilometres to the north east. It’s one of the highest villages in the Apennines and gateway to the magnificent mountain plain of Campo Imperatore, which you spent most of the day crossing. It has been a memorable day, with the countryside carpeted in wildflowers and populated by semi-wild horses, flocks of sheep and creamy coated, ever-watchful Abruzzo sheep dogs. The four shepherds you greeted were the only people you met – more like a little corner of Tibet than Italy. It seemed a barren, wild place from the heights of Corno Grande, but as you wandered across the undulating pasture the early summer flora, recently emerged from beneath spring snow, was a rich surprise.

      Thoughts of food and cold beer intrude on your reverie. Settling your pack for the last time, you watch the tower catch the last of the sun. In the west the long, darkening ridge of Monte Sirente, in the Sirente-Velino Regional Park, forms the final wall enclosing this secluded world of peaks and plains, hilltop villages, forests and ancient towns.

      You stroll down to the cluster of stone houses and cobbled passages below. The once-abandoned hamlet is being brought quietly back to life by a few dedicated families who, with national park and regional support, are slowly renovating the tumbledown buildings. One of the first to re-open was Rifugio Rocca Calascio, where your meal, bath and bed await. Earlier you passed through the medieval village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, now almost fully restored to its Medici heyday. Abruzzo’s conservation and renewal policies are bearing remarkable fruit.

      Children’s laughter and the smell of pasta sauce are the only directions you need. A fox sneaking across the hillside sets the dogs off again. This is a special place – an astounding protected landscape, criss-crossed with tracks and trails, waiting for adventurous spirits to discover it for themselves.

Abruzzo

      Despite its central location and close proximity to Rome, Abruzzo is one of Italy’s least known and populated regions – a spectacular and harmonious blend of snowy mountains, grassy plains and forested canyons; of hillside olive groves, vineyards and long sandy beaches. Its natural riches are protected in three national parks, one regional park and many smaller reserves. Thousands of years of history are reflected in a multitude of abandoned castles, hilltop villages and ancient farmsteads; religious dedication echoed in splendid abbeys, silent churches and remote hermitages.

      It’s a wonderful place to get to know. The Abruzzesi are resourceful, respectful and welcoming people – with a sure view of their global future but a firm sense of their history and tradition. Neither northern nor southern, the spirit of Abruzzo is its own.

      The wild and high Apennine ridges form the grain of the land. Two thirds of the area is mountainous and one third is protected. The claim to be the greenest region in Europe is well founded.

      Ancient sheep droves run hundreds of kilometres from the coastal plain of Puglia northwards into the mountain pastures of Abruzzo – the traditional routes of the great bi-annual migration of flocks and shepherds known as the transumanza.

      The mountains are home to marvellous and rare plants and animals. The highest peaks of peninsular Italy are here, their slopes supporting ski resorts and an extensive network of summer trekking and mountain biking trails. The mountains fall to the Adriatic, the intervening hills covered in vines, olives and orchards; the coastline itself is developed with resorts offering warm, safe bathing – beach bars, sun shades and loungers as far as you can see.

      The region is divided into four provinces, each named after its capital town – L’Aquila, Chieti, Pescara and Teramo. L’Aquila is also the seat of regional government and Abruzzo’s cultural centre. Its university can trace its roots back over 500 years. It’s a refined and beautiful city situated high on the flanks of the Gran Sasso mountains and continuing ever more quickly to recover from the major earthquake of 2009. The largest settlement, though, is relatively modern Pescara, where over 120,000 live in new apartment blocks and villas on the long Adriatic shore.

      Twenty-three of Abruzzo’s villages have been designated among the most beautiful in Italy – the highest number of all the regions of the country. Despite this, Abruzzo remains a largely unfashionable corner of Italy and the better for it. Spared overwhelming touristic icons (no leaning tower or grand baroque fountain), it has revealed itself slowly to the outside world. Development is at a steady pace. There are manufacturing industries, motorway connections, a large coastal city (Pescara, a favoured holiday spot of Italians), sophisticated restaurants and modern shopping malls but, mostly, low key. What can’t escape your attention, though, is the empty mountainous countryside – a magnificent unspoilt landscape to savour and explore.

Geological history

      The Apennine mountains of Abruzzo are formed predominately of limestone and other calcareous sediments dating from the Mesozoic period in geological history – between 250 million years and 67 million years ago. The sediments were laid down in the warm, calm waters of the long-gone Tethys Sea and marine fossils are commonly found in the region. This was the age of the dinosaurs and their relics, too, have been uncovered.

      Mountain building began very recently in geological terms and is a process that continues today. The tectonic make-up of peninsular Italy is complex but, essentially, the Adriatic plate is being dragged south westwards (subducted) beneath the adjacent plate, causing the sedimentary rocks above the line of subduction to be crumpled upwards, forming the Apennine chain. Long considered to be a result of the same event that created the Alps, it is now known that the Apennines are quite independent geologically and were formed much later. The area remains seismically active as the stresses built up during continuing plate movement are released with sometimes shattering consequences.

      The grain of the land runs north west to south east – perpendicular to the direction of movement of the Adriatic plate. The upthrust limestone massifs have been sculpted by ice and water and eroded into sharp peaks and rounded plateaus, gashed by narrow ravines and separated by high grassy basins where once large lakes lay.