Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park

Listen for a moment. Somewhere below you, water runs over pale limestone. A breeze moves through the beech leaves with a soft, dry rustle. The air smells of moss, cold stone and wild thyme. Under your boots, the path is a mix of loose gravel and last year's leaves. Welcome to the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, a high green fold of the central Apennines, the long mountain spine that runs down the middle of Italy.

Most visitors arrive expecting a pretty mountain landscape. What they find is something older and wilder. This is one of the oldest national parks in Italy. It was born in the early 1920s, at almost the same moment as Gran Paradiso in the Alps. For a country so full of churches, palaces and ruins, that early decision was unusual. Here, the treasure to protect was not a building. It was a forest, and the animals living inside it.

Before it became a park, much of this land had a very different purpose. Part of the upper Sangro valley was a royal hunting reserve of the House of Savoy, the family that ruled Italy at the time. When the hunting reserve ended, local naturalists and a group of determined supporters pushed to protect the area instead. So a place once kept for killing animals became a place kept for saving them. That reversal still shapes the park's character today.

For most of its life, this protected area carried the simpler name of Abruzzo National Park. Its borders, though, always crossed into the neighbouring regions. In 2001, the name was officially changed to include Lazio and Molise as well. The largest share still lies in Abruzzo, around the upper Sangro valley. The Lazio side climbs from the Val Comino, a quieter valley of stone villages to the southwest. The Molise side touches the eastern edge.

Now, the animal that everyone hopes to see. The Marsican brown bear lives only in this part of the central Apennines. It is a distinct population of brown bear, isolated here for a very long time. Scientists estimate there are only a few dozen left. That makes every single bear important. Most visitors never see one. Bears are shy, and they move mostly at dawn, at dusk and at night. If you do see one, it will likely be far away, across a valley.

Here is something many people do not realise. The bears of this park often live very close to people. They sometimes walk at night through the edges of villages, drawn by fruit trees and old orchards. Some local residents and park staff work hard to keep bins closed and chicken coops secure. The goal is simple. A bear that learns to eat human food can become a problem bear. A bear that stays wild has a far better chance of survival.

The wolf is the second great story here. In the twentieth century, the Apennine wolf came close to disappearing from Italy. The forests of this park were one of the places where it held on. From these mountains, wolves slowly spread back along the Apennines and even into the Alps. So when you hear about wolves returning to northern Italy, part of that story starts here. Wolves are even harder to see than bears, but their tracks sometimes appear in fresh mud or snow.

Look up at the high cliffs and rocky meadows above the tree line. This is the home of the Apennine chamois, a small mountain goat-antelope with a dark coat and short hooked horns. In winter its coat turns darker, with pale patches on the throat and neck. At one point, only a small group survived in these mountains. Careful protection helped them recover, and animals from here were later used to bring chamois back to other Apennine ranges.

All around you, the forest itself is the quiet giant of this place. Much of the park is covered by beech trees, with smooth grey trunks and a light green canopy in summer. Some of these beech forests are very old and have been left largely undisturbed. In 2017, several of them became part of a UNESCO World Heritage site that protects ancient beech forests across Europe. In autumn, these slopes turn copper, gold and deep red.

The landscape is also shaped by stone and water. These mountains are mostly limestone, so the rock is pale, almost white in strong sunlight. Rain sinks into cracks and reappears as cold springs and clear streams. The Sangro river runs through the heart of the park, and near the village of Barrea it widens into a long lake made by a dam. On calm mornings, the water holds a sharp reflection of the surrounding peaks.

The villages are part of the experience, not a break from it. Pescasseroli is the main centre, with a visitor area and small wildlife enclosures. Civitella Alfedena is known for its link with the wolf. Opi sits on a rocky ridge, its houses stacked close together. In these places, you may hear church bells, smell wood smoke in cooler months, and find local cheeses, cured meats and lentils in small shops. Shepherding has a long history in these mountains.

One more detail that many visitors miss. Near Villetta Barrea grows a special form of black pine, a dark conifer that stands out against the lighter beech forest. It survives on steep, rocky ground where other trees struggle. Its dark crowns give some slopes a striped look, deep green against pale stone. Once you notice it, you start to see how the park changes colour and texture from one slope to the next.

So take a slow breath here. Notice the layers in front of you: the stream or path near your feet, the grey trunks of the beeches, the bare limestone higher up, and the open sky above the ridge. Somewhere in this landscape, perhaps not far away, a bear or a wolf may be resting out of sight. As you walk on, move quietly, keep your eyes on the edges of meadows, and let the forest keep a few of its secrets.