Il borgo fantasma di Montefalco da Moricone - Monti Lucretili

#fidenetrekking #abruzzotrekking1962 #civitacastellanatrekking #abruzzotrekking1962 #fidenetrekking #montagna #montagne #mountain #mountains #mount #roma #romacapitale #civitacastellanatrekking #civitacastellana #fidene #trek #trekking #shorts #short #reel #reels #bushcraft #abruzzotrekking #newyork #fernando #montefalco #phantomcity #moricone #monteflavio #montilucretili Once you reach the center of Monteflavio, proceed in a southwest direction towards the ruins of the castle of Montefalco; After passing the interesting ancient "periphery" of the village, characterized by a curious architectural typology with elongated rural buildings placed parallel to each other, the route continues along a dirt road through a landscape dominated by agricultural and pastoral activities, dotted with fenced-off livestock pens, sheaves, and small cultivated plots. These "infrastructures" affect the flat areas of the small alluvial valley floors, while the rugged topography of the raised limestone outcrops is partly used for wild grazing and partly reclaimed by vegetation. Shortly after, after about a kilometer, the base of the hill on which the remains of the fortified complex of Montefalco stand is reached. The hill is located on the right of the road, and the ascending route is immediately recognizable by the presence of a path bordered by dry stone walls, which most likely constituted one of the ancient accesses to the castle. This is the area where the traces of two different periods of human settlement converge, each shaping the landscape with similar land use patterns. We are on the border of current and pre-current agricultural activities, where we can see traces of an ancient rural landscape that developed along the slopes of Montefalco, an open landscape still used for grazing today, but which in ancient times was closely connected to the sustenance of the castrum. The climb to the summit of the hill follows a picturesque path constructed with dry-stone macera, planted with blackthorn, bramble, and dog rose hedges, alternating with downy oak and Turkey oak trees. Often, the suspiciously large rows of oaks, "anomalous" in size and differing from the rest of the trees in the coppice forests, are nothing more than the demarcation of old pasture boundaries, or sometimes markers marking the boundaries of plots with different intended uses, thus preserved and not subject to felling. The landscape we pass through is characteristic of scrubby pastures, where hardy plants, or those not particularly palatable to animals—in this case, horses and cattle—predominate. Blackthorns, brooms, brambles, and young oak and hornbeam plants, severely compromised by grazing, are struggling to recolonize the slopes. Beautiful blooms of yellow asphodel (Asphodeline lutea), a pioneer species that colonizes degraded pastures with extremely sparse grass cover, are visible. After a few minutes, you reach the summit occupied by the ruins of the castle (894 m), and immediately glimpse the imposing stretch of the still-existing city walls. Contemporary with the Castrum Castillionis, Montefalco is mentioned in a 13th-century document as a tributary of the Sabine Diocese, but by the early 15th century, the fortified center had lost importance and was abandoned. Of the castle, in addition to the aforementioned section of the walls, remain some remains of structures interpreted as part of the fortress, residences and a cistern built with a construction technique entirely similar to that of the other complexes in the area, in small regular ashlars and limestone blocks, using the limestone for the foundations. A glance at the landscape allows one to embrace the entire central sector of the Lucretili with the ridge of the highest elevation of Monte Pellecchia (1368 m) to the east, while to the south, beyond the deep Casoli valley, the beautiful profile of the Monte Gennaro group (1271 m) looms.