National Park of Casentino Forests, Mount Falterona and Campigna

Less than 50 km from Florence and Forlì, straddling the Apennine ridge, there is one of the most important forestry heritages in Italy, considered a true paradise for mountain and nature lovers. This is a very special area not only because it offers visitors an extreme variety of landscapes but also because it is able to offer a range of opportunities, itineraries and experiences that are nothing short of incredible. Walking among fir trees, cool streams and picturesque waterfalls, you can breathe the mystical atmosphere of places like the hermitages of Camaldoli and La Verna, which over the centuries have welcomed important figures of faith and thought (Dante Alighieri, Ludovico Ariosto, San Romualdo and San Francesco d'Assisi). Environment and landscapes Unlike the Tuscan side, where the landscape is more gentle with woods, pastures, chestnut groves and cultivated fields, the Romagna side shows steep slopes covered with a thick mantle of woodland, alternating with stratifications of bare rock, and abandoned cultivated land, with small churches, stone mills and ancient uninhabited villages on the edges. Going up the wild valleys until you meet the slopes of Mounts Falco and Falterona, there are some of the most beautiful sites of the entire Emiliano Romagnolo Apennines. These include the Acquacheta waterfalls, near the village of San Benedetto in Alpe; the forest of Campigna with its majestic Palazzo Granducale, the hunting lodge of the Lorraine family; the village of Ridracoli with its artificial dam; and finally the Riserva Integrale di Sasso Fratino, with its centuries-old beech forest, a World Heritage Site. Not to be missed is the local fauna, probably the richest and most diversified of the whole Apennines: wild boar, deer, roe deer, fallow deer, many birds and the suggestive presence of the wolf.