Majella

Majella National Park was created in 1991 in Abruzzo, east of the Gran Sasso, and protects a compact limestone massif rising above 2,700 metres, with more than thirty summits above 2,000. Its morphology is one of a great rounded bulk, furrowed by deep valleys and karst gorges, with an extensive system of caves and shafts.

It is one of the most biologically valuable territories in the Apennines. It concentrates an important part of the population of the Marsican brown bear, an endemic subspecies of the central Apennines of which barely a few dozen animals survive, and it is home to Apennine wolf, Apennine chamois, wildcat and otter. Its flora is exceptional: around a third of all the plant species in Italy have been recorded within the park, with numerous endemics tied to the high-altitude grasslands and the limestone crags. It is also one of the areas of the project to reintroduce the bearded vulture to the Apennines. Its geological value has earned it recognition as a UNESCO Global Geopark.

The Majella also has a singular cultural dimension: its walls and caves hold the largest concentration of rock hermitages in Italy, refuges cut into or built against the rock and occupied by hermits since the early Middle Ages, among them Pietro da Morrone, the monk who became pope as Celestine V. That network of hermitages, along with the transhumance paths that cross the massif, forms part of the protected landscape.