POLLINO National Park
Environment
Discover unspoiled adventure and Nature on your sustainable holiday.
From trekking and canyoning to bike trekking...
Explore one of South Italy's most beautiful and adventurous national parks.
The Pollino, with its 192k hectares of territory spread over the two regions of Calabria and Basilicata, ranks among the 50 largest in the world. It offers visitors diverse environments from mountains and lakes, to canyoned rivers and wild animal life.
The Parks highest tips are the Serra Dolcedorme of 2267m and Mount Pollino of 2248m.
You will be accompanied by our professional and knowledgeable guides for adrenaline filled adventures and relaxing days in nature.
Discover adventure and Nature on your sustainable holiday
Has to offer
The National park has a huge variety of plant life; it is the home to the oldest European tree, a type of Bosnyan pine named "Pino Loricato", symbol of the park, estimated to be over 1000 years old. The most common tree in the Pollino is the beech and the Park is known for it's significant variety of medicinal herbs.
It's diverse animal wildlife includes eagles, wolves, wild boars, foxes, squirrels, woodpeckers, falcons and deer, and is home to rivers and streams like Lao, Sinni, Coscile, Garga and Raganello, which in time have formed canyons and gorges that promote activities like canyoning and rafting. See "Le Gole del Raganello"
The park is scattered with numerous inland and coastal villages, like Scalea by the sea in the Calabria region bordering the territory;
Matera in Basilicata, UNESCO World Heritage, famous for it's cave town that became the movie set of Mel Gibson's "Passion of Christ";
Maratea, also close to the Parks Basilicata territory border, with it's Christ statue on the tip of the hill facing town to protect it from the sea;
Verbicaro, an inland typical South Italian village bordering the Parks territory and easy access to its activities.
Activities
Activities the Pollino offers are numerous and varied. Very popular are the relaxing days out trekking, horse riding and mountain biking, to more adrenalin driven canyoning and rafting experiences on the river Lao for the more adventure enthusiast, making the location ideal for all visitors.
With villages available in proximity all round the National Park, part of day life is relaxing walks through paths and woodlands, enjoying the breath taking scenery and peaceful setting, birdwatching and much more, to then return to the local Trattoria restaurant for an incredible "pennichella" (afternoon-nap) calling meal of typical local cuisine.
In the nearby sea-front town of Maratea, a good push of adrenalin and adventure comes from the Via Ferrata del Redentore, a protected type of climbing route, fixed to the steep rocks with overhanging parts and the open Thyrrenean Sea on the horizon behind you.
