Читать книгу Trekking in the Apennines. The Grande Escursione Appenninica онлайн

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Gillian Price, 2015

En route to Poggio Scali (Stage 5)

INTRODUCTION

Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines!

In the soft light of these serenest skies;

From the broad highland region, black with pines,

Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise.

To the Apennines, William Cullen Bryant, 1835

The mountainous Apennines, without a doubt, are Italy’s best-kept secret. Forming the rugged spine of the slender Italian peninsula, they seem to provide support as it ventures out into the Mediterranean. For walkers this glorious elongated range provides thousands of kilometres of marked walking trails over stunning panoramic ridges and stupendous forested valleys, touching on quiet rural communities little affected by mass tourism. Dotted throughout are historic sanctuaries, hospitable mountain inns, national parks and nature reserves home to wildlife and marvellous wildflowers, incredible roads and passes that testify to feats of engineering, and stark memorials to the terrible events of World War II.