The rugged region that's home to Italy's wild side
Day one of our wildlife and walking adventure in Abruzzo, and already we'd seen a bear. Or that's what our group of amateur wildlife-spotters hoped we'd seen: a large, dark-brown creature with a humpy back shuffling along a ridge some distance across the valley.
Passing the binoculars around, our guide Filippo let us down gently. 'It is very like a bear,' he said – from a distance – but it was a wild boar. 'The bear is much faster. It does not stop. It moves very quickly through the landscape until it finds food.'
The Marsican brown bear is the icon of Italy's National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise. Everywhere there are murals and peep boards to poke your head through, depicting cuddlier versions of this elusive, endangered creature. There are bear-themed road signs, too, warning you to watch your speed.
In 2023, a beloved three-year-old bear nicknamed Juan Carrito, who became famous for a bakery break-in at a ski resort, was hit by a car and killed in a village just outside of the park – a tragedy not only for Carrito and his fans, but for the species itself. It's estimated there are only 50-60 Marsican brown bears left in the world, all of them living within or just beyond the Abruzzo National Park.
The wild heart of Italy
The chance to spot a bear was not the only thing that drew me to what local conservation group Rewilding Apennines calls the 'wild heart' of Italy, at once remote but only a couple of hours' drive east from the mayhem of Rome.
There are hiking trails through spectacular mountain scenery – in May amidst a profusion of spring flowers including wild pansies, iris and orchids, or if you go in September, through mushroom-scented woods rivalling New England for autumn colour.
This region also harbours wolves, and has done for more than 400,000 years. After the Second World War, they were almost driven to extinction, but since the 1970s, the Apennine wolf has been strictly protected, and there are now at least eight packs within the Abruzzo park.
Wolves I did get to see. On our second day, we rose at 5am for a dawn wildlife-watching session at an abandoned village with panoramic views across a steep wooded valley. Before we even got there, we spied two of these charismatic creatures, just metres away from our vehicle, trotting purposefully parallel to the road on the low, scrubby hillside. They stared directly at us, then picked up their pace, loping further up the hill, camouflaged against the rocks and bushes. It was rare to see wolves so close to the town, Filippo told us.
The town was Pescasseroli, where we stayed at a comfortable, art nouveau-style hotel for four nights of our trip. In springtime, Pescasseroli is sleepy and sedate, waking up from its winter hibernation just like the bears. Come August, Filippo told us, the streets will be thronged with Italians on their summer holidays.
The tour I was on, with Exodus Adventure Travels, is part of a wider collaborative effort in the region to educate people about the benefits of coexisting with bears and wolves. Despite misconceptions, the Marsican brown bear is rather shy and not at all aggressive (reassuring when you're sitting on a lonely mountainside armed only with a pair of walking poles). There have never been any bear attacks on humans here, and wolves prefer to steer clear.
Exodus donates all profits from the sale of the trips to Rewilding Apennines, who are maintaining what they call 'bear-smart corridors,' which link the Abruzzo with nature reserves and other national and regional parks in the Apennines. By minimising human-bear conflict in these more densely populated and unprotected areas, they hope to encourage the bears to roam more widely and find new areas where they feel safe.
A night in the wild
Our overnight stay at the Rifugio Terraegna, a mountain lodge 1,780m above sea level, was a high point of the trip in both senses of the word. We trekked through ancient beech forests, admiring the lichens cloaking the live trees and marvelling at the life that still teemed in the dead ones – holes made by beetles and woodpeckers, and hoof fungus up the trunks like stepping stones.
Our group of six, strangers when we set off but by now bonded (Exodus limits group sizes to eight), spent a magical early evening looking for wildlife across a wide valley with grazing horses and foals. We saw only a roe deer (and heard a tawny owl), but even a sudden downpour couldn't dampen our enthusiasm. As the clouds rolled on over the mountains and the sun broke through, a double rainbow appeared.
Returning to the lodge, chilly but elated, our chef-host Debora welcomed us with a blazing fire on which to warm our toes, and a feast that included local aged pecorino, soft sheep's cheese rolled in 16 mountain herbs, and ' Marzolina' – the first goat's milk cheese of spring. Garlicky fennel sausages with grilled aubergines followed.
Snuggled up with the rest of the pack in a dormitory, stuffed full of cheese and mountain air, I had the best sleep of the trip, my dreams inhabited by shadowy wild animals.
In the end, I never saw a bear, but it didn't matter. I had seen their claw marks on posts, and their hair caught on fences and trees as they left their scent for others along the trail.
I knew that somewhere in the forest, or high in a mountain cave, they were there, and that was enough.
Essentials
Anna was a guest of Exodus Adventure Travels. A six-day tour, Italian Apennines: Walks and Wildlife, costs from £1,449 per person, B&B, including one night in the Mountain Refuge, listed meals, transport and activities. Excluding flights.
Departures include September 21 2025, May 17 and September 20 2026. Vueling flies from London Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino from £70 return. You also have the option to travel by train to Rome with Byway (arrange through Exodus); route via Paris with overnight stay in Turin, £714 return journey per person.
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