Description of the attraction
The Tuscan-Emilian Apennines National Park, founded in 2001, is located in the heart of a region renowned for its natural beauty, its products and hand-made souvenirs. It includes the provinces of Massa, Lucca, Reggio Emilia and Parma.
The park is located on a mountain range that separates the Italian regions of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. Nearby are the national parks "Cinque Terra" and "Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona, Campigna".
Most of the park's territory is occupied by high-mountain meadows with amazingly beautiful lakes, over which the peaks of the Alpe di Succiso, Monte Prado and Monte Cusna rise. From the side of Reggio Emilia one can see an interesting geological formation - Pietra di Bismantova, which Dante mentioned in his "Divine Comedy". It is a narrow, semi-cylindrical plateau with steep vertical walls up to 300 meters high. The Tuscan-Emilian Apennines boast an incredible variety of natural landscapes - from alpine meadows and moorlands to lakes, waterfalls and rushing streams that make their way among the rocks. Here, on an area of 23 thousand hectares, wolves, wild rams, roe deer, golden eagles live, and many rare plant species grow.
One of the highest peaks of the park - Monte Cusna (2121 meters) - is also known under other names: "Dead Man", "The Man Who Sleeps" "or simply" Giant "for the similarity of the outlines with the lying man. Monte Prado (or Prato), located on the border of the provinces of Reggio Emilia and Lucca, reaches a height of 2054 meters. And the Alpe di Succiso mountain with a height of 2017 meters has a pyramidal shape and is dissected by several gorges. Here is the source of the Sekchia and Enza rivers - the right tributaries of the Po, which is the longest in Italy.
