A walk in the Appenines, in Dante's footsteps

This photo and its commentary have been "moved" to ensure that it is shown on the correct date!

This photo was taken at Fonte Avellana  - or the Veritable Hermitage of the Holy Cross - in a remote mountainous section of the Appenines.

Fonte Avellana is a hermitage/monastery founded in about 980.  Dante visited the site, and includes a brief description of it in his Comedy.  It was clearly a very prestigious and important site for many centuries; it was directly connected with agricultural land including a mill in Le Marche a considerable distance away; I shall upload a blip on the mill site shortly.

To the right can be seen the slope of Monte Catria (1701 m); the peak in the middle is - so far as I can tell - Monte Motette (1331 m).  The site lies very close to the Monte Cucco national park.

As can be seen, the area is criss-crossed with steep valleys.  This area comprises the main North-South ridges of the Appenines, and in Italy's next region to the South, Abruzzo, the highest peak of the Appenines can be found: the massive Gran Sasso, rising to 2912m.  (Italian understatement is applied here, as Gran Sasso just means "Big Rock".)

I have photos taken from higher up giving a much better idea of the intricacies of mountains and their valleys, but this one shows Fonte Avellana itself.