Description of the attraction
National Park "Cilento and Vallo di Diano" in the province of Salerno in the Italian region of Campania was created in 1991 to protect the territory of the Cilentan coast from mass tourism and construction. In 1998, the park was declared a World Cultural and Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO along with the ancient Greek cities of Paestum and Velia and the Cartesian Monastery of Certosa di Padula, located on its territory. In addition to the Cilento and Vallo di Diano, the province of Salerno also has the Foche Sele Tanagro Nature Reserve and the Punta Licosa Marine Reserve.
The territory of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park is the second largest in Italy. The park stretches from the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea to the foothills of the Apennines in Basilicata and Campania and includes most of the Cilentan coast, Pruno forest, Alburni, Cervati and Jelbison mountains. The natural beauty and biological diversity of these places are successfully complemented by monuments of history and culture and numerous myths and legends - from the stories of the nymph Lycosia and the travels of Aeneas to the ruins of the ancient Greek colonies of Eleus and Paestum. The natural landscapes of the park, untouched by man, alternate with lands inhabited and cultivated by people for thousands of years.
Cilento is an amazingly beautiful land, where green hills and ashy olive groves are reflected in the blue waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, turbulent streams run nearby, here and there you can see moonlit landscapes and thickets of chestnuts and oaks, and tiny ancient villages nestled on high cliffs.
About 1800 plant species are registered on the territory of the national park, every tenth of which is endemic or rare. The most famous of them, which has become a real symbol of the park, is the primrose, or primrose. The fauna of the Cilento is no less diverse, which is due to the wide variety of local ecosystems - there are coastal and high-mountain areas, turbulent rivers and streams, cliffs and forests. Rare golden eagles, peregrine falcons, Mediterranean falcons, stone partridges and alpine jackdaws are found on mountain tops and in high-mountain pastures.
The numerous caves of Cilento and Vallo di Diano have been chosen since ancient times by a man who found refuge in them. The oldest traces of human presence date back to the Middle Paleolithic (about 500 thousand years ago), and primitive tools of labor of our primitive ancestors were discovered in the coastal caves between Palinuro and Scario.
