Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park

Listen first. Under the wind there is the sound of water: a stream running over pale limestone, cold enough to numb your hand. The air carries resin from the spruce and the faint smell of wet rock. Above you, grey and ochre cliffs rise out of green forest. Welcome to the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park, a wild corner of the Dolomites in the Province of Belluno, in Italy's Veneto region.

This park covers roughly thirty thousand hectares of mountain, gorge and forest. It lies between the valley of the Piave river and the valley of the Cordevole, a tributary that cuts north to south through the protected area. Two old towns watch over it. Feltre sits to the southwest, and the city of Belluno sits to the southeast. From the streets of Belluno, you can look north and see the jagged wall of the Schiara group, one of the park's great massifs.

The park is young by European standards. Italian law created it in the late 1980s, and it was formally established in 1990. But the protection came late to a landscape that people have used for thousands of years. Shepherds, charcoal burners, woodcutters and miners all worked these slopes. Many of the paths you walk today began as their working routes, linking high summer pastures to the villages below.

In 2009, UNESCO added the Dolomites to its World Heritage list. This park is one of the protected areas included in that listing. The reason is partly beauty, and partly geology. Dolomite rock formed from ancient marine sediments, from reefs and sea beds that lay under warm tropical water more than two hundred million years ago. Look closely at a weathered boulder here, and you may find the outline of a shell. You are, in a very real sense, standing on the floor of a vanished sea.

Here is the first thing many visitors miss. The Dolomites are famous for their crowded resorts and high roads further north. This park is different. Much of it has no roads at all. The Monti del Sole, the Mountains of the Sun, are often described as among the wildest and least visited ranges in the whole Dolomites. Deep gorges, steep forests and very few marked trails keep the crowds away. Silence here is not an accident. It is the result of difficult terrain.

The park holds several distinct mountain groups. To the west are the Vette Feltrine, the Feltre Peaks, with broad high meadows and rounded summits. In the centre are the Pizzocco and the Monti del Sole. To the east rises the Schiara, sharp and vertical. On the Schiara stands a slender rock spire called the Gusela del Vescovà, which means the Bishop's Needle in the local dialect. On a clear day you can pick it out from Belluno.

The second surprise is botanical. The Vette Feltrine are known among scientists for an unusual richness of flowering plants. During the last Ice Ages, some of these summits stayed partly free of ice. Plants survived up there while glaciers covered the land around them. Botanists have studied these meadows for centuries, and several rare and endemic species grow here. Endemic means they grow naturally in this region and almost nowhere else. In early summer, the high pastures fill with colour.

Animals live here in good numbers, though they keep their distance. Chamois move across the steep rock faces with sure, quick steps. Roe deer graze at the forest edge in the early morning. Marmots whistle a sharp warning from the high meadows when they see you coming. And if you look up, you may see a golden eagle turning slowly on the warm air above the ridges. Patience and a quiet voice help a great deal.

Water shapes this park as much as stone does. In the Val del Mis, a narrow valley in the heart of the park, the stream has carved smooth pools and channels into the rock, a place known as the Cadini del Brenton. The water there is a clear blue-green, and the rock around it is polished almost white. Further down the valley lies the Lago del Mis, a reservoir created by a dam in the twentieth century.

Human history is never far away. In the Valle Imperina, near the Cordevole, people mined copper for centuries. Old mine buildings and furnace ruins still stand there, and the site has been restored so visitors can learn about the miners' hard working lives. Near the park's southern edge, close to Sospirolo, stands the Certosa di Vedana, a Carthusian monastery. The Carthusians are a strict order of monks who live in silence and solitude. The setting suits them well.

For walkers, the park offers everything from easy valley strolls to serious alpine routes. The famous long-distance trail called Alta Via Number One, which crosses the Dolomites from north to south, ends near Belluno. Its final stage climbs through the Schiara group on exposed sections fixed with iron cables and ladders. These are known as via ferrata routes, and they need proper equipment and experience. Gentler paths, though, follow streams and old mule tracks through beech and spruce woods.

Weather changes quickly in these mountains. A bright morning can turn to thunder by mid-afternoon in summer. Mist can roll up from the valleys and hide a path in minutes. The local people have always respected this. Mountain huts, called rifugi, sit at key points on the high routes, offering shelter, simple food and a bed. Arriving at one after a long climb, with soup on the table, is one of the quiet pleasures of a visit here.

Now, take a moment wherever you are standing. Notice the colour of the rock: pale grey, cream, sometimes a soft rusty orange where water has stained it. Notice the line where forest gives way to bare stone. Listen again for water, for birds, for the wind across the ridge. This landscape took millions of years to form, and a few decades of care to protect. As you walk on, go slowly. The park rewards the people who look closely.