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The Apennines

The Apennine chain runs along the entire length of Italy and clocks up some 1400km from the link with the Alps close to the French border, all the way south to the Straits of Messina, even extending over to Sicily. The highest peak is the 2912m Corno Grande in Italy’s southern Abruzzo region. As a formidable barrier that splits the country in two lengthways, the range has witnessed centuries of wars and skirmishes, alternating with the passage of traders, pilgrims and daring bandits.

Heading towards Libro Aperto (Stage 15)

The rock is, by and large, sedimentary in nature – sandstone, shale and some limestone – deposited in an ancient sea during the Mesozoic era (245–66 million years ago). The mountains were formed immediately after their neighbours, the Alps, when – some 66 million years ago, and climaxing around two million years BCE – remnants of the African plate were forced together and squeezed upwards, little by little.

Both volcanic and seismic activity shaped the Apennines, though ancient ice masses also played a part. Tell-tale clues are sheltered cirques like giant armchairs, once filled by ice from a glacier tongue and nowadays more often than not home to a lake or tarn. The present aspect of the Apennines – steep, rough western flanks overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, in contrast to the relatively gentler slopes on the eastern Adriatic side – is due mainly to recent erosion by water.