Fiume Argentino

We knew that we were living in a National Park (Parco Nazionale del Pollino) but I have to admit that coming from Oregon, I didn’t expect it to be as beautiful or as wild as our forests.  This post will show how my thinking was a bit off.  We haven’t learned a great deal about the natural history yet, but knowledge will come with time spent and effort expended.  Nature doesn't give up secrets casually. The small area we've explored so far is beautiful and still mysterious.

We parked our car in Orsomarso, about ten miles east of Santa Domenica Talao.
We really didn’t know how far up the road the trail started, so we could have parked much further up the road.

It started like our Santa Domenica river walk does, with small gardens in town that slowly give way to forest.  There were signs of tree harvest on a small scale too.

Then, we were very surprised by the breathtaking Fiume Argentino, the Argentino River.  The color of it was bluer than the sky was that day.

We found a very well kept little arboretum not far up the road, which delighted me because I have been trying to identify the famous Castagna (chestnut) trees since we moved here.  

The path was stone.  I had to laugh as I thought of how difficult it would be build such a thing in the Columbia Gorge (cost, ADA, etc.).  We had fun identifying plants and ate lunch there.  No other visitors were around.

People who love the woods built the pedestrian bridge across the river--we could tell.  The flowers were familiar--the trees were not.

The walk ended (it could have gone on much further) at a waterfall.  There was a sign at the bridge to the waterfall saying that it would be safer if you cross one person at a time—because the stringers holding up the bridge are too small—according to ranger Doug.

We turned around knowing we would most definitely come back to explore further up the trail.