Sasso Fratino, Italy's forbidden forest

There are places that protect themselves by keeping people out. Sasso Fratino, on the Apennine ridge between Bagno di Romagna and Santa Sofia, in the province of Forli-Cesena, is one of them: Italy's first strict nature reserve, established in 1959, where free access is forbidden and all human intervention has been suspended for more than sixty years. The result is a forest left entirely to itself, an old-growth wood where trees are born, fall and decompose without anyone touching a thing.

The protected forest

Here the beeches are more than five centuries old, among the oldest of their kind in the northern hemisphere. In 2017 UNESCO added these beech woods to its World Heritage list, as part of the serial site devoted to Europe's ancient beech forests. It is a recognition that does not translate into queues and ticket booths: the heart of the reserve stays closed, watched over by the Carabinieri della Biodiversita, and that is precisely the point.

The trails

You cannot enter Sasso Fratino, but you can skirt its edges. On the Romagna side, the trail network of the Casentino Forests National Park runs to over six hundred kilometres, and from Bagno di Romagna the old mule track to Pietrapazza sets off, a steady climb that leads from the valley floors to the ridges, through beech woods, silver firs and silent clearings. Walking along the margins of the reserve you breathe the very air of the forbidden wood, without ever crossing its boundary.

The wildlife

It is an experience made of waiting and listening. Red deer, roe deer, fallow deer and the Apennine wolf live here, and on clear days the autumn rutting call echoes through the valleys. In the village, the visitor centre housed in the Palazzo del Capitano tells the story of the reserve with immersive installations, useful before setting out and for understanding what you are about to walk through.

When to go

Bagno di Romagna, with its thermal baths and its snug little town, makes an ideal and uncrowded base. Come in spring, when the beech unfurls, or in autumn for the foliage and the rutting calls. A slow, mindful alternative to the more trodden destinations of the Apennines, where the value lies precisely in what cannot be possessed.

Related guides: Emilia-Romagna by train: a slow itinerary along the Via Emilia without a car.

Getting there

The Sasso Fratino strict reserve is closed to the public: you can only skirt its boundaries from the ridge trails of the Casentino Forests National Park. The usual starting points are the Passo della Calla, Campigna and Corniolo, on the Santa Sofia and Bagno di Romagna side, reachable by car from the E45 dual carriageway climbing up towards the Apennines. There are no railway stations in the immediate vicinity; the nearest airports are Forli and Bologna.

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