Norcia

and

The National Park of the Sibylline Mountains

Instituted in 1997, with a surface area of about 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres), the National Park of the Sibylline Mountains was born from the great project to safeguard an environmental, historic, and religious heritage of certain and inestimable greatness. “A park for everybody”, because anyone can in some way enjoy the speckled and dappled scenes that this park is able to offer.

The dozen mountains that rise over 2000 meters (6500 feet), of which Vettore is the undisputed master, make a frame around the woods of oak, black hornbeam, flowering ash and beech that color the scenery below 1000 meters (3200 feet). But these are not but some of the 1800 vegetable species that researchers have identified in this zone: the alpine star, so rare and beautiful that it speaks for itself as a true and proper jewel of nature, the alpine windflower, the campion, the pioneer violet, the Bear’s grape...and still others, as far as the heart of the curious and the impassioned is ready to lead you.

Obviously, in such a rich natural panorama, fauna finds a perfect natural habitat, giving us the spectacular flight of the golden eagle, the long howl of the wolf, the curious pleading of the porcupine, the rarity of the marten, the elegance of the roe-buck. There are fifty species of mammals that live in perfect synthesis with such an environment: one hundred fifty birds (among which, besides the golden eagle, we find the goshawk, the hawk, the Peregrine falcon, the Eurasian eagle owl, the rock partridge, the wallcreeper, the snow finch, the Alpine chough, the Eurasian dotterel, the Rufous-tailed rock thrush, the Alpine accentor...) and more than twenty species of reptiles and invertebrates. This is a heritage with which one can truly live every day with the peace and spontaneity that only the green of the Sibyllines is able to give.

In general, the National Park of the Sibylline Mountains tends to be divided into 4 distinct sections:

HISTORIC SECTION: centered exclusively in the section of the High Nera;

FLOWER SECTION: the most northern section of the park;

MYSTIC SECTION: up high, among the highest peaks, where the prophesying Sibyll dwelt, and Pontius Pilate was thrown into the lake along the slopes of Mt. Vettore;

HOLY SECTION: of which Norcia and Preci are the principal poles.

Many are the itineraries that one can undertake among these valleys and up through our mountains, in search of legendary places, of the rarest animals, of the most beautiful flowers... or simply to breathe, once again, uncontaminated air.

For more information, visit: http://www.vetustanursia.com