Rocca Calascio
The Highest Fortress In The Apennines, Abandoned After The 1703 Earthquake, Standing Above Campo Imperatore Inside The Gran Sasso And Monti Della Laga National Park · Calascio, Abruzzo
Rocca Calascio is a ruined stone fortress on a bare ridge at about fourteen hundred metres, with nothing around it but grass, the Gran Sasso massif filling the sky to the north and a small octagonal church standing on its own a few hundred metres below. It is the highest fortress in the Apennines and among the highest in Europe, it was abandoned after an earthquake in 1703, and because nobody had a reason to rebuild it, what is left is exactly what the earthquake left: four corner towers and a shell you walk into off the hillside. There is no ticket office, no barrier and no staff. The approach is a walk up from a car park below and the wind comes straight across the Campo Imperatore plateau, which is a high, empty, treeless grassland that people call Italy's Tibet and that carries sheep in summer and snow for much of the winter. Come at dawn or at the end of the day, and take a layer whatever the valley is doing, because the wind across the ridge never really stops.
Localita Rocca Calascio, Calascio, Abruzzo, 67020, Italy
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and for the most part there are none. The fortress is an unstaffed open ruin on a ridge with no gate and no closing time, and the church below is the same. The car park charge and the summer shuttle operate daylight hours in season only. WINTER IS THE REAL CONSTRAINT: snow can close the approach road and the Campo Imperatore road for periods, and there is no service of any kind up here when it does. Check the road and the weather rather than an opening time.