The Magical Bosco di Sant’Antonio

Tell me, what comes to mind when you think of a wood?

Well, trees of course. All woods have trees.

And?

More trees.

What kind of trees?

That would depend on the kind of wood. Birch, beech, pine…

What about Saint Anthony’s Wood?

Ah. Il Bosco di Sant’Antonio. There are trees there too, mostly beech. But they’re not just any trees.

No?

Oh no. They are fantastical creatures straight from the pages of a storybook. Some are multi-limbed mythological sea creatures, and others are funny, friendly giants. There are straight and solemn pillars of trees whose topmost leafy branches arch and touch to form a cathedral roof, whose leaves shimmer in summer and shiver in autumn, whispering their percussion down the avenues and aisles of the forest. Then there are wispy trees that in winter form an army of silver ghosts, their sad whiskers webbing out around them.

Sound like a magical place.

Oh it is.  But I haven’t told you yet about the monumental beech trees that were once candelabras on a giant’s banqueting table. And how you can sit, you and two others, in the enormous palm of an upturned hand, cradled by crooked, knobbly-knuckled, sky-pointing fingers.

What else?

There are creepers that coil and creatures that creep. There’s an underbrush that sings, and a forest floor that blooms in spring and crackles in autumn.

An enchanted wood, then.

Definitely. But just an ordinary wood all the same. For there’s a clearing where families set up camp for the day, and do all the things that families do on a day in the woods. Where the men light the barbecue and the women fret and grandparents play cards and the kids play and squabble. Then they all eat together uproariously and later, in the hush of the drowsy afternoon, they succumb to a snooze, and the forest goes on breathing all around them.

Sounds wonderful.

It definitely is. You should go.

Il Bosco di Sant’Antonio is part of the Parco Nazionale della Majella. Nearest town:  Pescocostanzo. Nearest main road:  SS84