There are 4 National Parks in Abruzzo. The largest and closest is the Gran Sasso National Park, a 150,000-acre protected area crossed by only one paved road (although there are countless unpaved roads for cyclists). There are seven visitor centres for maps and information about 150 marked walking itineraries of various length and difficulty. Two-thirds of the park’s surface is covered with huge forests of beech, pine, fir, oak, yew, ash, maple, wild oak and other trees, home to a handful of formerly endangered species: the Apennine Wolf, Marsican Bear, Fox, Mountain Goat and Apennine Lynx. Small groups of these animals thrive here now, alongside myriad other wild species which are occasionally supplemented by large herds of domesticated sheep.
