Pollino National Park at Terranova

The land of the Bosnian pine and the wildest trails of the South

Between Basilicata and Calabria, the Parco Nazionale del Pollino, established in 1993, is the largest national park in Italy, covering about 1,900 square kilometres, and a UNESCO Global Geopark. It protects the Pollino and Orsomarso massifs, with the highest peaks of the southern Apennines, such as Serra Dolcedorme, 2,267 metres, and Monte Pollino, 2,248 metres, with beech forests, canyons, karst plateaus, alpine meadows and rivers, inhabited by wolves, roe deer, golden eagles and the Egyptian vulture. Its symbol is the pino loricato, the Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii), a rare tree that in Italy grows only here, on the highest and rockiest ridges, with a bark divided into plates like the armour of the Roman soldiers, the "lorica", from which its name derives. Some specimens are more than a thousand years old.

On the Lucanian side, Terranova di Pollino is one of the main gateways to the park, a small mountain village at about 900 metres, from which some of the most beautiful and wildest trails in the South start. From the nearby Piano Ruggio and the Colle dell'Impiso, paths climb to the Piani del Pollino, vast high-altitude meadows, and to the Serra di Crispo, nicknamed the "Giardino degli Dei", the Garden of the Gods, where the loricato pines, twisted by the wind and lightning, stand out against the sky on white limestone rocks in a landscape of extraordinary beauty. In the villages of the park, there are ancient traditions, such as the tree rites in honour of Saint Anthony and the Madonna.

Tip: hike to the Serra di Crispo with a local guide; go in late spring or early autumn for the best weather.

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