The Cipresseta of Fontegreca, an enchanted place

The Cipresseta of Fontegreca is one of those uncontaminated places that are easy to explore. The area is set in the high Caserta area, on the borders of Campania, out of the city and especially from the mass tourist routes. We are in the Matese Regional Park, in an area rich in olive groves, vineyards and aquifers that make the land extraordinarily fertile. Here, thanks to a miracle of nature, a vertical wood of cypresses of a unique variety has been created. The wood, called "dei Zappini", is crossed by the Sava river, which falls down from the mountain, overcoming rocks and vegetation, and forming a multitude of waterfalls and pools of fresh and crystal clear water, where you can dive and even dive. A small paradise on earth to explore. The Cipresseta extends for about 70 hectares between the Bosco dei Zappini and the valley of the river Sava. The forest formation is absolutely atypical, characterized for the 90% by an ecotype of cypress of the variety horizontalis, among the few resistant to a disease, the cancer of the bark, that has put at risk the survival of these trees. The Bosco degli Zappini, to the right of the Sava, which in that stretch crosses a gorge of calcareous nature with steep profiles, is a mixed coppice of white hornbeam and downy oak. At an altitude of 400 metres, the cypress tree established itself and extended downstream until it transformed the area into a pure cypress wood. Its rapid diffusion to the detriment of the pre-existing coppice of turkey oak, holm oak and manna ash determines the exclusive peculiarity of this forest, which is also remarkable in terms of fauna for the presence of families of birds of prey and mammals.