50Km Valle Orta
The Maeilla massif from Mt. Morrone
Ride Overview
A Saint, maize and a bridge
This is what happens when a land is given back to nature. Animals and plants restore their hierarchy and balance returns. Flowers return to fields, bees and butterflies do their thing, unhindered by pesticides. Woods return, bringing back too, the deer, martins, wolves and bears. This splendid and relatively undemanding journey on mule tracks and abandoned roads is a delight. You ride accompanied by the ghosts of the past; the farmers and shepherds who once farmed this thin-soiled land before giving up and emigrating to America. You’ll likely be the only person out enjoying the views of the untamed mountains lining both sides of the Orta valley.
Ride Practicalities
Parking can be a challenge in Caramanico. The best place is the layby at the junction off the SS247 to S. Tomasso. It’s free and on the route!
START/FINISH: Caramanico Termè, or at the layby on the turning to S. Tomasso DISTANCE: 50km TOTAL ASCENT: 1337m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: A mix of easy mule tracks, and old roads closed to traffic. There is a short section on the usually very quiet SS247 FOOD AND DRINK: There are fountains along the route in S. Tomasso, Salle, and Caramanico to replenish bidons. Roccacaramanico; La Tavolla Maiella, Sant’Eufemia a Maiella; Trattoria Maiella in Sant’Eufemia a Maiella, S. Nicolao; La Rodinella, Caramanico; La Noce LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: Lama Bianca
WHAT TO SEE/VISIT: S. Tomasso; The church of Thomas Becket, Salle; the castle, Caramanico Termé; the old town
Ride Notes
An English saint, wandering during his exile in the Abruzzi mountains? Surely not? yet, legend states that Thomas of Canterbury as he would have styled himself (although better known today as St. Thomas à Backet) is said to have visited Italy. Tales still relate how he walked across the mountains from Rome to this remote spot in the heart of Abruzzo, and was found praying in the remains of an old pagan temple by a local man. When, some years later, news finally trickled through that he had been murdered on the orders of his king and within two years made a saint, the feudal lord and his tenants agreed that a church to dedicated to his memory would be a proper memorial to his visit. A rustic medieval jewel was built. Inside, in the cool stone air, two lions twist their heads in enquiry, St. Christopher’s feet are nibbled by fish and John kisses the dead Christ. Beneath the altar in a damp cave is a well, part of the original pagan temple. Outside, carved into a stone relief is a head of maize - extraordinary in that maize was not brought to Europe for another 350 years. The ride begins beneath beside this mystery.
Maize on a stone relief - carved some 350 years before its arrival into Europe
The way plunges down towards the Orta gorge, across which is a spectacular bridge, built in the early 1950s and is the highest in Central Italy. Once over it, having taken time to peer into the distant depths below, the climbing starts towards New Salle, a town built after yet another of the region’s devastating earthquakes destroyed the old village. The broken road winds up the hillside, the cracks in the old tarmac wider than the widest bike tyres. In the ruins of the old village, some effort has been made to make the old Norman castle into an attraction, but visitors, perhaps put off by the deteriorating road, are all but non existent. The old houses are crumbling and a melancholy air of homes abandoned pervades.
Salle’s Norman Castle
The tarmac ends and the climb out of the village is on a rough track, which is very rideable, past the crumbling houses with no roofs and trees growing in rooms where children were raised.
The road up from Salle
Occasionally there may be a shepherd minding his sheep, or a farmer tinkering with a machine in a shed, but otherwise you are alone. Despite this once being a busy thoroughfare with many mountain springs harnessed to provide water in animal troughs, they are all dry now due to lack of maintenance, so ensure you fill up before leaving the old village of Salle.
The route continues up hill on a twisting and easy gravel surface until a junction, where you see a grass track off to the left. (Approxiamately after 13km). There is a signpost for this, but it is lying on the ground covered by brambles. Such is the work the National Park Authority.
The grass path - which should be signed as MTB 9
The grass path is everything you need from a mountain bike journey - views of valleys and mountain ridges, a track which is not too demanding, shady woods and wild flower meadows. The area is rich in fauna too, although you almost certainly won’t see them, there are wolves, wild boar, deer, beech martins and much, much more. There is nothing to be alarmed about, but having said that, should you come across a group of wild boar, make absolutely sure that you are not between a mother and her young. Should you come across a group, make plenty of noise to shoo them away. After 7km of riding bliss, you arrive at the village of Roccacaramaico.
There is a small restaurant in the village, La Tavola Maiella, which in July and August serves lunches, or beer and coffee is that is your preference. There are several fountains in the village from which cool mountain spring water splashes into the trough below.
From Roccacaramanico, you continue on a gentle uphill track - which should be signed as MTB 9 to Passo S. Leonardo, where you join the SS487 towards Caramanico Terme. On a road whose corners are perfect for swooping around, you ride downhill to Km33, where you’ll see a rough tarmac track leading off to the right, which takes you uphill through wild pastures until you join the old road coming up from the left, which linked Sant’Eufemia a Maiella to S. Nicoloa. It’s closed to traffic, as the restless earth earth is busy removing the cuticles of tarmac and tossing them in great chunks down the hill. For a mountain biker however, it’s perfect; just be alert to some very wide cracks in the surface from time to time, along with the brambles which are stretching across the empty road.
The old road from Sant'Eufemia a Maiella to S Nicolao
If you arrive in S Nicolao between 13.00 - 14.00 you could lunch at La Rondinella, or otherwise continue on the fast and twisty road down to Caramanico, past the Spa hotels. The town’s sulphur springs were first noted in 1576, and over successive centuries, the waters became well known for their therapeutic properties. However, corruption, mis-management and incompetence has meant most, if not all of the hotels offering treatments, are closed. If you’re in the mood, a wander around the old part of town - which is across the main road from the spa hotels, is rewarding, as is a good lunch at La Noce, just outside town. Depending on where you parked (see Ride practicalities below), the ride either finishes in Caramanico, or after a couple of kms uphill at the junction with S. Tomasso.
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