Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park

Italy'S Oldest National Park, Founded In 1922, Holding The Entire Marsican Brown Bear Population And The Apennine Wolf Core From Which The National Recovery Began · Pescasseroli, Abruzzo

Italy's oldest national park alongside Gran Paradiso, founded in 1922, and the reason two animals still exist in the Apennines. The Marsican brown bear lives only here and in the mountains immediately around it, and the population is somewhere around fifty to sixty animals, which makes every single one of them individually significant; the park names them and tracks them. The Apennine wolf was down to about a hundred in the whole country when this park protected its core, and the recovery of wolves across Italy, and into France and Switzerland, began from that remnant. What you actually visit is beech forest, mountain valleys and a handful of stone villages: Pescasseroli, Civitella Alfedena, Opi and Barrea on its lake. It is quiet, cheap, deeply unfashionable and one of the few places in Europe where the conservation story is the attraction. You will probably not see a bear; come for the place, take binoculars, and treat a sighting as luck rather than an itinerary.

Viale Santa Lucia, Pescasseroli, Abruzzo, 67032, Italy

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the park has none: it is open country with free access and no gate. What has hours are the wildlife centres at Civitella Alfedena and Pescasseroli, which keep seasonal museum hours with a midday closure and shorter winter opening, and the guided outings, which run at dawn and dusk by arrangement. THE CAMOSCIARA ROAD CLOSES TO CARS IN HIGH SEASON with a shuttle in its place, and winter snow closes the higher roads. Check the season, not an opening time.

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