Welcome to Regional Park Sirente Velino: Europe’s first green community for conscious travelers

The pursuit of truly sustainable travel in Italy often leads to discovering hidden heavens, and when it comes to the conscious way of traveling there is perhaps no destination more significant than the Regional Park Sirente Velino. Deep in the province of L'Aquila in Abruzzo, the Green Heart of Europe, this vast protected expanse only around 100 km far from Rome is much more than just a breathtaking landscape within the majestic Sirente and Velino massifs.

The Park represents indeed a pioneering model for the future of rural and wild areas, and is officially recognized as the Europe’s first green community. That's a status of great significance and responsibility, aiming at developing a travel eco-community based on the revival of local villages, the slow sustainable living and the preservation of environment and wildlife. A real and renewed balance between human and nature, which presents itself as the new ultimate destination for conscious travelers seeking sensations, authenticity and outdoor adventures.

Visiting and discovering the Sirente Velino is an opportunity to actively participate to a successful and resilient vision of sustainable tourism in Italy. The park offers a wide range of experiences to fall in love with this land: beautiful protected areas accessible by trails meticulously restored and maintained, cycling routes connecting historic hamlets, itineraries to explore the authentic local culture and wilderness slowly. Are you ready to discover this magic?

The factor that elevates the Regional Park Sirente Velino from a lovely natural reserve to an avantgarde in the field of conscious and sustainable tourism is its recognition as green community. This designation embodies an innovative comprehensive ecological strategy for the entire mountain territory, which unlike conventional protected areas combines environmental health, social vitality and economic renaissance in one winning formula.

With its eco-community made of twenty-two villages within over 54.000 hectares of wild nature, the Park represents a dynamic living experiment for building new immersive, inclusive and sustainable travel experiences. A simple ecological model that optimizes local natural and renewable resources, implementing also circular zero-waste economic principles, enhancing slow and local-first products supply chain and developing low-impact mobility infrastructure.

Hence, Sirente Velino transforms conservation into a means for promoting the renaissance of rural inland communities. The Park’s main commitment is indeed about reversing the depopulation of its villages, actively encouraging new generations and conscious tourists to return inhabiting and visiting these places. A successful example is given by the school tourism activities, to increasing environmental education in kids. An innovative combination of ecological preservation and community empowerment, that features Regional Park Sirente Velino as protagonist of new perspectives of sustainable traveling for conscious tourists.

The Regional Park Sirente Velino is a real naturalistic oasis, enclosed between Mounts Sirente and Velino at heights that can even exceed 2.000 meters, boasting amazing landscapes, a wide natural protected area and large spaces of complete wilderness, yet keeper of a prestigious heritage of history and culture that revives in beautiful attractions and hamlets in the territory of the green community.

The territory of the Park, typically divided into the three macro-areas Marsicana or Velino Lands, Rocche Highlands and Subequana Valley, here has been profoundly shaped by karst and glacial phenomena, shaping over time rugged peaks and spectacular deep valleys such as the Celano Gorges - known as the Canyon of the Apennines, in the area of the villages of Aielli and Celano - and high-altitude plateaus like Piani di Pezza.

Travelers can venture into exciting mountain hikes and discover large and thick beech forests to explore by crossing the trails, then visit geological wonders like Stiffe Caves and Lake Sinizzo in the area of the village of San Demetrio de Vestini, and perhaps watch beautiful local fauna like the chamois, especially near Rocca di Mezzo. Not to be missed also the Roman ruins of Alba Fucens in the area of the village of Massa d’Albe, the magnificent Piccolomini Castle in Celano, the village of Aielli and its contemporary murals, or Tione degli Abruzzi with its Pagliare, typical medieval stone huts. And by getting to the isolated hamlet of Rosciolo, at the foot of Mount Velino, the St Mary Church in Porclaneta Valley awaits explorers for a breathtaking view.

The wish for discovery and exploration here in the Regional Park Sirente Velino is always welcome, a green heaven designed to enable visitors to experience slow, inclusive and low-impact adventures across its protected lands.

The Park offers a dedicated extensive network of routes for hiking and cycling. This widely accessible exploration - including also paths specifically designed for disabled tourists - was made possible by the meticulous renovation of over 460 km of trails through the wild and connecting the twenty-two villages of the community, in addition to cycle paths including routes to ride by bicycle for over 310 km across the landscape. If possible, visitors can also experience the horseback exploration of the nature reserves.

For those travelers who love enjoying long walking journeys, to visit the Park it's gonna be challenging. Its territory in fact includes the Celestine’s Great Path, an approximately 90 km walk crossing nineteen towns over a four-stages trip, and the Franciscan Path, an 80 km journey on foot that touches ten villages across likewise stages. Trekking over these hiking trails is a journey within a journey for those who find serenity in adventure and discovery: the perfect opportunity to explore the villages of the territory at a slow pace, purchase artisan local products, or perhaps taste the flavors of the genuine abruzzese cuisine.

Here at the Regional Park Sirente Velino wildlife and nature are essential elements of an exceptional ecosystem biodiversity to preserve and let thrive., a perfectly balanced combination of habitats that guarantee safeguard and shelter to hundreds of animal species including mammals, breeding birds, reptiles and amphibians, even the ones mostly endangered.

The wild forests and rocky formations inside the Park house some of the most prominent predators, like the Marsica brown bear, the Apennine’s wolf and the royal eagle, yet also herbivores like the deer and the chamois especially. For conscious travelers experiencing this wild heritage it's possible, but demands respect and immersion. The Park offers experiences for exploration and nature observation, exciting photographic safaris to snap pictures of wild animals from afar and safely on the hiking trails designed by the operators of specialized facilities, like the Chamois Visitor Center and Wildlife Area in Rovere di Rocca di Mezzo.

For those who instead prefer more quiet walks in the greenery, in the heart of Sirente Velino there are beautiful beech forests - like Cerasolo Forest near Campo Felice - and colorful flowers that bloom in the meadows all year round, renovating the Park’s colors and scents. The most iconic examples are white narcissus in spring and violet saffron fields in autumn, a magic for photography.

The profound commitment of the Regional Park Sirente Velino as green community concentrates on human revival alongside wildlife and environmental conservation. An eco-community counting just a few thousands inhabitants overall, but that nevertheless dreams big and aims at breaking records in conscious tourism. A common purpose that already achieved the acknowledgment as First Europe’s Park of the Villages of Breathing in 2024, highlighting a shared and renewed interest in the slow and sustainable living of the community, and sets the next goal in becoming the best natural park in Abruzzo.

The success of the innovative eco-community model of the Park lies in the involvement of local villages and towns, in a process that promotes environmental health as direct source of brand new social and economic vitality for these historic hamlets. For tourists, this translates into unique opportunities to take a step into a rich local heritage by practicing the so-called urban trekking.

Travelers at Sirente Velino find new and untold adventures, with the chance of exploring the Park's villages and best attractions by taking part in themed itineraries discovering the historical, cultural and artistic sides of these lands and its community. An example is the Cultural Itinerary of Castel di Ieri, a lovely medieval hamlet at the foot of Mount Sirente, where to admire its most characteristic monuments - an ancient Italic temple, a hermitage immersed in an oak grove, called “sacred wood”, and a fortified watchtower - and taste delicious local products, discovering the flavors of the past.

The Park indeed is shaping a new perspective about slow traveling and being sustainable, aiming at attracting those tourists really interested in preserving nature and reviving communities. A consciousness that reflects itself in every choices made by travelers along their journey: the accommodation, the daily hikes and visits, the tasting of local products, even snapping beautiful pictures, everything becomes a chance to stop being just a tourist and become instead part of this game-changing vision of tourist sustainability.

For those wishing to join it, the good news is that this green heaven is easily accessible by different transportation options. The main one is by train, with two different lines crossing the Park (Sulmona-L'Aquila and Roma-Pescara) with stops in towns like Castelvecchio Subequo, Magliano dei Marsi and Aielli. If you prefer moving on the road, many villages are included in the itineraries of the Arpa bus lines; otherwise, by car the most comfortable option is the highway A24 Rome-L'Aquila-Teramo, or A25 Rome- Pescara. Then, the closest airports for tourists that need moving by plane first are in Rome and Pescara. The Park also supports travelers with a selection of over one hundred sustainable places where to stay and eat.

But no matter which means you’re going to use or where you're going to stay, though. By choosing to experience the Regional Park Sirente Velino, you choose more than a new destination to visit: you’re adopting a new way of traveling grounded in respect, awareness and connection.