National Treasure - Umbria's Sibillini Mountains

Five-thousand feet up in the Sibillini Mountains the air was like wine, and the picnic - wild boar salami, wafer-thin slices of prosciutto, tomato salad dressed with chopped basil and olive oil, pecorino cheese, crusty bread and sweet melons - was food fit for the gods. But it was the setting that made our alfresco meal so memorable: an alpine meadow so thickly strewn with orchids, saxifrage and wild peonies that there was hardly room for a blade of grass.

We were walking in the Apennines, a three-hour drive north-east of Rome, in Umbria to be more precise, in the Parco Nationale dei Sibillini. Created less than 10 years ago, this is Italy’s newest national park and what a gem it is, offering some of the most glorious walks in Europe. Yet few of the country’s British visitors have heard of it.

In Roman times, these lonely mountains were the haunt of the Sibyl, the legendary enchantress who lured travellers to their doom. Today they have become a natural refuge for wolves, golden eagles, wildcats and porcupines. In springtime, the park is an oasis of birdsong, and wherever I walked I was serenaded by cuckoos and skylarks, and the ‘wet-my-lips’ whistle of quails in the meadows. But the park’s greatest glory is its abundance of wild flowers, and early June is probably the best time to see them.

Floral kingdom I had begun my walk at the mountain hamlet of Pintura di Bolognola, following a stony track that climbed steadily up the sides of a hanging valley. At first there were beechwoods, but it was above the treeline, at about 5,000 feet, that we entered the park’s rich floral kingdom. Here, on every side, grew carpets of mauve and yellow mountain pansies, patches of midnight-blue gentians and sambucina orchids.