Parco regionale di Colfiorito

East of Foligno, the upland of Colfiorito breaks the Apennine skyline with seven karst basins, and in the largest lies the region's smallest protected area: a mountain marsh surrounded by reeds, Roman ruins and two small museums. The park preserves a wetland landscape with natural and archaeological heritage.

Why it matters

The park protects a habitat that is scarce in central Italy: a wetland at around 760 metres of altitude, the only place on the Colfiorito plateaus where water stands all year. Reed beds shelter a community of water birds of high conservation value, so much so that the marsh is listed under the Ramsar Convention and designated a Special Area of Conservation by the European Union. Around it, the same plateau carries the archaeology of the Plestii, the ancient Italic people whose city of Plestia controlled the pass between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic sides of the peninsula. Nature and antiquity form a distinctive combination within the protected landscape.

What to notice

The Palude di Colfiorito is surrounded by meadows and reed thickets. Herons and other wetland birds use its shallows, while seasonal flowers and butterflies inhabit the surrounding grassland. Areas known as Croce Cassicchio, Fonte Fontaccia and Fagiolaro are associated with local wildlife.

The human history is visible at the locality of Pistia, where remains of Plestia include a forum area near the church of Santa Maria di Plestia. On Monte Orve, the Castelliere, a pre-Roman settlement enclosed by dry limestone walls, shows the plateau's earlier occupation. The village's archaeological MAC and naturalistic museum interpret this heritage.

Context and history

The I Piani di Colfiorito, the Plestine plateaus, are seven sink basins that held lakes in remote ages; the marsh is their last permanent remnant, with the other basins flooding only after heavy rain. Regione Umbria protected the area as a regional park in 1995, covering about 338 hectares, precisely for the birdlife of the marsh and the variety of wet, wooded and cultivated ground around it. Farming never left: the plateau's red potatoes, lentils and spelt are the local staples, and the patchwork of fields inside the protected area is part of its character. The plateau's strategic position kept it inhabited from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages, and the archaeological museum opened in 2011 gathers roughly 1,450 finds that trace the Plestii from their origins to Romanisation, among them four bronze plates of the fourth century BC dedicated to the goddess Cupra in the Umbrian language. The naturalistic museum, opened in 2002 inside a military storehouse of 1882 that later served as an internment camp, explains the plateau's geology, flora and fauna.