National Park of the Sibillini Mountains
Even if the Park includes a significant natural territory it presents different valued and situationed landscapes.The visitors can go on interesting guided natural and historical trips to find the four main sectors in which is subdivided the protected area: like the Alto Nero slopes and its "guaite"; the flowering slopes,magic slopes and sacred slopes.
Tradition wants that Visso today's headquarters of the National Park was founded 907 years before the Roman Era , its recognizes a free commune and the Napoleonic invasion was divided into five districts called "Guaite". They also include Castelsantangelo and Ussita. It's a rich territory of castles and look-out towers that characterize the structure of numerous inhabitated centers built by the valley inhabitants to defend themselves by the repeated Saracene raids.By a naturalistic point of view the Goles of Valnerina dug by the impetuous Nero River are interesting.They can be run by car and Mt. Bove with a dolomite aspect, contains all the high altitude Sibillini typical vegetable kingdom asociations.
It includes the northern zone of the park with Ragnolo meadows, in the summer season you can see the splendid orchard and lily blossoming and other interesting kinds like the Orsini fritillary, narcisus and "Alpine astro".In the Fiastrone valley, the impressionate Gorge dug by the water, you can find the grotto of Frati an old and suggestive Claren monk monastery (1000A.D.). Going up the river upwards to Lake of Fiastra you can see the peaks of the surrounding mountains and reach the suggestive Acquasanta Valley with its beautiful falls and and Orso Grotto, a placename that witnesses the presence of the past of this kind even on Mt. Sibillini.
The sibillini inhabitants were known ,in the medieval in all Europe, as a kingdpm of demons, wizards and fairies. The most famous among the legends are the Sibilla ones. " l'illustre profetessa" the prophetess that lives in a cave located on Mt. Sibillini and Mt. Pilato, where the dying body of the famous Roman procurator was dragged by some buffaloes of the red water of the evil lake situated on the high cut of the valley that crosses longitudally Mt. Vettore.
A few distance you can find the Gorge of Infernaccio, where the memories and old wizard rituals and suggestive examples of the erosive operations of the Tenna river on the limestone zones are still alive. You can find splendid high trunk beech forrests in this section and some rare species vegetation like the edelweiss and the gentian. You can also find the wolf, goshawk and golden eagle.
Norcia is the heart of this important section of the park. home of St. Benedetto patron of Europe, famous for its splendid historical center, the square with a (XIV- XVIII centuries) church dedicated to the Saint and (XVIII century) Duome and other historical buildings. The trips leave from here: to the "marcite", the original irrigation system since the time of the Benedectine Monks of Piani di Castelluccio.The meadows are made up of two wide original Karst plains and in the middle lies the town Castelluccio. The St. Eutizio Abbey (18), founded in the end of the V century became famous for the monks ability to heal the ill with precious and medicative Mt. Sibillini herbs.