Discovering the Monti Simbruini Park

This itinerary unfolds inside the Park and starts from the Associazione Sportiva Equestre Monti Simbruini (equestrian sports centre), in Monte Livata. It is about 50 km long and lasts for 8-9 hours. The best months to tackle it are May, June and the end of September.
Once you leave the paved road in front of the horse-riding centre, soon you will forget that you are only a few kilometres away from Subiaco.

The horses’ hooves will follow paths, gravel roads and the soft but firm soil of prairies: riders willsoon learn to pick out the signs of a plentiful animal life – the flight of a hawk, holes dug by wild boars. Experts will even be able to detect wolves’ prints.

There will be moments when we are fully immersed in an extremely varied landscape which is the backdrop to the horses’ walk: small valleys dotted with the white of big rocks, bumpy humps in the ground where wide grassy areas alternate with dense woods, sudden slopes, small streams and, in the distance, the harshest peaks of the Monti Simbruini. This is a total immersion in nature, and many kilometres go by without meeting a living soul, or at the very most some flocks of sheep or small semi-wild herds of cows. All the itinerary unfolds at over 1000 metres in altitude, and reaches 1751 m at the “Vedute” (views), a significant name which reflects the panorama it offers, just under the peak of the Monte Autore (1855 m).

The only point of contact with “civilisation” is the stop made to visit the Santuario della SS Trinità (Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity), close to Vallepietra, which offers a stunning view: the small church nestles in fact just below a breath-taking three-hundred metre cliff, “lo Scoglio” (the “Rock”).
This sanctuary appears to be the only one in the world dedicated to the Trinity, and its origin are lost in the mists of time, around the year 1000. This is a grotto with frescoes showing the Trinity, shut in by a stone façade. Experts believe Benedictine monks of Subiaco, or Basilian monks who sought refuge in the cave, built it on top of an ancient pagan temple and that they are the authors of the paintings.
The popular myth is even more intriguing: apparently a farmer’s oxen, working on the land in Tagliata above the cliff, escaped and precipitated into the ravine. The plough was caught half-way, while the man invoked the Holy Trinity for help. When the farmer reached the bottom of the cliff, he found that the oxen were alive and well and were in adoration of the image of the Holy Trinity, painted inside the grotto.
Once a year, for over two centuries, on the morning of the liturgical feast of the Holy Trinity, visitors can look on the “Pianto delle Zitelle” (weeping of the spinsters), a lament sung by the young girls of Vallepietra.

Information
Ass. Sportiva Monti Simbruini
Loc. Monte Livata – Subiaco
Responsabile: Giuseppe Digiannantonio
Phone 339/4573957 – 329/3711678
In addition the club has a lodge for 10 people