The lake of the chirocephalus and the Sibyl's cave
On the border between the Marche and Umbria, the Monti Sibillini are one of the most beautiful and mysterious mountain ranges of the Apennines, protected by a national park, with peaks over 2,000 metres, wide high-altitude pastures, deep gorges and beech forests, and a landscape steeped in legends of fairies, sorcerers and necromancers, which in the Middle Ages made them famous throughout Europe as a land of magic. Their highest peak, Monte Vettore, 2,476 metres, hides in a glacial basin just below its summit, at about 1,940 metres, one of the very few natural glacial lakes of the Apennines: Lake Pilato.
The lake, which in years of abundant snow takes the shape of a pair of spectacles, with two basins connected by a narrow channel, is home to a unique creature: the Chirocephalus marchesonii, a tiny red crustacean, about one centimetre long, which swims upside down and lives only here in the world; to protect it, swimming and touching the water are strictly forbidden. According to legend, the body of Pontius Pilate, condemned to death by the emperor, was placed on a cart pulled by oxen, which, left to wander, threw it into the lake, which since then has taken his name and was believed to have reddish waters. The lake can be reached on foot in about three hours from Foce di Montemonaco. On nearby Monte Sibilla, at 2,173 metres, the Grotta della Sibilla, now collapsed, was believed to be the entrance to the underground kingdom of the Apennine Sibyl, a fairy queen who seduced knights, a legend that inspired the medieval "Guerrin Meschino".
Tip: the hike to Lake Pilato is demanding; go in early summer, when the lake is full, and respect the ban on swimming.
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