The high Apennines of Abruzzo are the least tamed part of central Italy. Most of it lies within the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, created in 1922, one of the oldest in Italy, where the Marsican brown bear, a distinct population found nowhere else, still survives in small numbers. Apennine wolves, chamois, red deer and golden eagles live here too, and in autumn the roaring of stags carries through the beech woods.
The riding is unusually good and unusually quiet. The road from Sulmona up to Scanno passes through the Sagittario gorge, a tight, narrow defile where the tarmac clings to the rock and tunnels cut the corners, and then opens onto the high plateau and the little lake of Scanno, which is said to have a heart-shaped outline when seen from above. The village itself is a tangle of steep stone lanes and arches, with a tradition of women's costume in dark colours and elaborate headdresses, and goldsmiths who still work the filigree jewellery that locals once gave as wedding gifts. To the west, the road toward Pescasseroli crosses a pass and then runs along the valley of the Sangro river, with beech forests on both sides. Bends are frequent, the surface is mostly good, and traffic is thin outside the school holidays.
Fuel is the point to watch. Scanno and Pescasseroli, both small towns of two thousand people or so, have fuel and a few shops, but the stations are limited and not always open late, so the larger town of Sulmona, about twenty kilometres away, is the safe place to fill up. Pescasseroli sits at roughly twelve hundred metres, so even in summer evenings are cool, and in winter the passes can ice up or close.
Sulmona is known for its confetti, sugared almonds shaped into elaborate flowers, and the local food is shepherd's food: lamb, pecorino, sausages, lentils, and a spicy chilli oil. Pescasseroli was the birthplace of the philosopher Benedetto Croce. Go in late spring or in October, when the beech woods go copper, and keep your speed down at dusk, when wildlife crosses the road.