Sila National Park

Breathe in slowly. The air up here carries resin, damp earth and something faintly sweet, the smell of pine needles warming in the sun. Underfoot, the ground is soft and springy, layered with years of fallen needles. Somewhere above you, the wind moves through tall crowns of trees, and it sounds almost like distant surf. Welcome to the Sila, the great forested plateau at the heart of Calabria, in the toe of Italy's boot.

You have come up from Casali del Manco, a municipality formed only in recent years by joining several old hill villages on the slopes above Cosenza. Those villages have always looked up toward this plateau. For centuries, families here climbed the Sila to graze animals in summer, cut timber, and gather chestnuts and mushrooms. So the forest around you is not wild in the sense of untouched. It is a landscape that people have lived beside for a very long time.

The first surprise is the shape of the land itself. Most visitors expect southern Italy to mean sharp mountains falling to a hot coast. Instead, the Sila is a wide, rolling upland. Much of it sits well over a thousand metres above the sea, and its highest summits come close to two thousand metres. Travellers sometimes compare it to Scandinavia or Canada. Here, in the far south of Europe, you find cool meadows, dark conifers and long, quiet lakes.

The area is traditionally divided into three parts. The Sila Greca lies to the north, and its name recalls the Albanian and Greek-rite communities who settled there centuries ago. The Sila Grande is the central and largest section. The Sila Piccola stretches to the south. The national park, in its present form, was created in 2002 and protects large parts of all three areas. In 2014, UNESCO also recognised the wider Sila as a biosphere reserve.

Now look closely at the trees. The tall, straight pines with grey, plated bark are Calabrian black pines, often called larch pines by locals. This is a subspecies that grows naturally in only a few places, mainly here and on the island of Corsica. Their trunks rise without branches for a long way, and then they open into a flat, dark crown. Mixed among them, especially on the cooler slopes, you will find beech and silver fir.

These trees have a long relationship with human history. Ancient writers described the Sila as a source of excellent timber and pitch. In the Roman world, pitch from this region, known as Bruttian pitch, was used to seal ships and wine jars. Bruttium was the old Latin name for this part of Calabria. So the resin smell you notice today was once a valuable trade good, carried down to the coast and across the Mediterranean.

The second surprise is that some trees here are extraordinarily old. Near the village of Croce di Magara, a small protected wood called the Fallistro holds a group of enormous larch pines known as the Giants of the Sila. Many of them are several centuries old, and some reach great heights with trunks that several people together could barely circle. The site is cared for by the Italian heritage trust known as the FAI, and walking among these trees feels like entering a quiet hall.

Then there are the lakes. Arvo, Ampollino and Cecita look as natural as any mountain lakes in the Alps. But they are reservoirs, created in the twentieth century when engineers dammed the Sila's rivers for hydroelectric power. Over time, forest and meadow have grown up to their shores. Today people fish, walk and cycle around them. The water changes colour with the weather, from steel grey under cloud to deep blue on clear days.

Keep your eyes and ears open for wildlife, though much of it is shy. The Sila was one of the places where the Apennine wolf held on when it had disappeared from much of Italy. Wolves still live in these forests, but you are very unlikely to see one. You have a better chance with the black squirrel of Calabria, a dark local form of the red squirrel. Woodpeckers drum on dead trunks, and in quiet clearings you may see deer.

The seasons change this plateau completely. In winter, snow often covers the high ground, and villages such as Camigliatello Silano and Lorica turn into small ski resorts. In spring, the meadows fill with wildflowers and the streams run fast and loud. Summer brings cool relief to people escaping the heat of the coast. In autumn, the beech woods turn copper and gold, and the forest floor fills with mushroom hunters carrying baskets.

Food is part of the Sila's identity. The plateau is known for its potatoes, which grow well in the cool, high soil and carry a protected regional label. Caciocavallo Silano, a stretched-curd cheese shaped like a teardrop and often hung in pairs, also takes its name from this area. In autumn, porcini mushrooms appear on menus everywhere. If you stop in a village shop, you will likely see cured meats, honey and jars of preserved vegetables on the shelves.

As you walk, notice the small human marks in the landscape. There are low stone walls, old wooden fences, and simple shelters once used by herders and woodcutters. Along some roads you may see stacked timber, a reminder that forestry still continues here under careful rules. Signposted trails start from the visitor centres, and they range from short, flat loops to long walks across the high ground. Paths are often quiet, even on busy weekends.

Before you go, pause for a moment wherever you are standing. Look up at the line where the pine crowns meet the sky, and listen to the wind moving through them. Feel the cool air on your face, even if the sun is bright. These forests have supplied ships, fed villages and sheltered wolves for longer than anyone can fully record. As you walk back toward Casali del Manco, notice how the smell of resin stays on your clothes... a small piece of the Sila travelling home with you.