Abruzzo

Counted among the greenest regions in Europe, it gives a third of its land to national parks where wolves, marsican brown bears, and chamois still hold their ground beneath the Gran Sasso and the Maiella, the loftiest summits of the Apennine chain. Up on the bare plateau of Campo Imperatore, a place locals call Little Tibet, the silence is broken only by the bells of grazing flocks.

This is a land shaped by the transumanza, the seasonal droving of sheep along ancient grass roads, and the table still tastes of it: hand-cut maccheroni alla chitarra pressed through a wire frame, rustic sagne, saffron from the Navelli plain, and the herbal liqueur centerbe, fierce with a hundred mountain plants. Stone borghi cling to ridges, some revived as scattered alberghi diffusi, others guarding fortresses against an empty sky.

Come in late spring for wildflowers and snowmelt, or in autumn when the high pastures turn bronze and the saffron crocus opens at dawn.