Today we are sharing with you some photos instead of a journey diary. In fact, those photos were taken on a December afternoon when we took a quick and simple tour of Pian dell’Elmo.
As you can understand from the name it is a flat area, located right at the foot of nearby Monte san Vicino. Pian dell’Elmo is a small hamlet in the municipality of Apiro, at 930 m a.s.l.. Not so far from here is the starting point for the path that leads to the top of the mountain San Vicino (1480 m. a.s.l.), which is steep but quite short and overall feasible even for the less experienced people.
It is a plateau adorned with about ten houses and villas with the classic pitched roofs typical of the houses in the mountain areas. Here you can find a camping and a hotel which are unused during winter. In summer this place is a meeting point for hundreds of young people that spend the night of 15th August (which is a holiday in Italy) camping here. Also it is the favourite destination for families on summer Sundays, for its fresh air and plenty of space for children to play.
At an environmental and natural level, the plateau is surrounded by pine and fir trees, classic mountain vegetation. It can happen to come across wild animals, such as roe deer, foxes, hares, badgers and, in extreme and rare cases, even wild boars and wolves. There are also many species of birds (hawk, golden eagle, starling, goldfinch, buzzard, pheasant etc.), reptiles and amphibians. A fauna richness that combines with the landscape richness.
A richness that increases in terms of splendor in winter, when Pian Dell’Elmo is often whitewashed by the snowfall that hits the area. And it is precisely on one of these occasions that we went to Pian Dell’Elmo. Following the complete gallery!
