Weekend in Valnerina, four things to do in Polino

In the heart of Umbria, a miniature Umbria waiting to be discovered.

A late medieval castle, Polino stands at the top of the Rosciano ditch valley, nestled, almost perched, on a rocky spur facing the mighty bulk of Mount Petano. This mountain town, the least populated and highest in the Terni area, once served as a control point on the Via per Leonessa and was long contested for its strategic position on the border between the Papal State and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In the old town, overlooked by a sixteenth-century fortress with cylindrical towers, you can still perceive the rhythms of a life marked by gestures and times that betray a centuries-old history far from the life of the valley floor. Arriving in Polino from the winding road that climbs the steep slopes on which the historic center clings, the bright limestone stones of the baroque fountain from 1625 make a fine show of themselves, ennobling the square at the entrance to the town. Polino has always lived in an almost symbiotic relationship with the harshness of the mountain that offers, at the price of fatigue and uncertainty, its gift of pastures, wood and products of nature that the inhabitants of this eagle’s nest have always exploited with respect. Let’s not go on any longer, here are some things to do in Polino for Easter Monday.

The village

The double wall that delimits the oldest part of the village has an entrance gate on which there is a coat of arms depicting two rampant dragons and the castle surmounted by a crown. Entering the gate you enter the maze of alleys that go up to the fortress, along which you can observe some votive lunettes carved into the facades of the narrow stone houses. In the upper part of the castle, instead, there is the sixteenth-century fortress. Built in a strategic position on the top of the rocky spur that dominates the valley of the Fosso la Sargiola and overlooking the Rosciano, it has a polygonal plan interrupted by four cylindrical towers leaning against the massive walls that enhance its grandeur. Outside the walls near the most modern part of the village, there is the monumental fountain in Mannerist style. Built in 1625 by the Marquis Castelli, it consists of an elegant marble façade with three basins surmounted by marine figures and caryatids. In the central basin there is a marforio (a subject of Roman origin that seems to represent a river deity) from which spring water flows. In the upper part of the structure there are some coats of arms of the Castelli family, a plaque that commemorates its construction and a statue that seems to represent a member of a noble family.

Polino and a museum…. upside down

For some years, the interior of the castle and the fortress have housed an interactive museum dedicated to the knowledge of the Umbrian Apennine mountains. The museum is structured in two different sections dedicated to the geological environment (below) and the naturalistic one (above). In the geological section, through some animated panels, the genesis of the Apennine mountain is described, the formation of fossils (ammonites) which are abundant in the surrounding area, the water cycle (meteoric, surface and underground) and the history of the Marmore Falls. The naturalistic part represents the vegetation (and the transformations brought about by human activities), the animals and insects that populate the Umbrian Apennines. The museum opens by reservation.

A picnic on Mount La Pelosa

Following the asphalt road that leads from Polino to the locality of Piano del Monte, you will find the Acquaviva fountain, known for the quality of its water and the place where, in ancient times, there was a pre-Roman fortified settlement of which today only faint traces remain. Continuing, you will reach the locality of Colle Bertone, a system of clearings and beech woods that are very popular in the summer for walks and picnics. The mountain area of the municipality of Polino culminates with Monte la Pelosa (1635 m above sea level) which probably owes its name to the presence of woods even in its summit part, spared, over the centuries, from clearing and grazing activities. Here, on the clearest days of the year, the view ranges from the main Apennine peaks to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The northern area includes the Salto del Cieco plains, within which there is a widespread presence of karst sinkholes that often remain hidden by extensive forests of beech, hornbeam, Turkey oak, sycamore and rowan. The pastures, which still show signs of human activity with cultivated fields, grazing domestic animals and traces of ancient agricultural systems, are home to the Apennine wolf, the marten, the wild cat, the sparrowhawk and the omnipresent wild boar.

The Cava d’Oro and that little sleeping volcano

Opened in 1760 by the Papal State, which intended to strengthen the metallurgy sector (at the same time exploiting other deposits in the area such as the Ferrare di Monteleone di Spoleto), iron, silver and, according to popular tradition, gold were extracted there. The opening of the quarry was honoured with the minting of a bronze medal bearing the effigy of Pope Clement XIII on the frontispiece and the inscription taken from the new mines near Polino Castello dell’Umbria on the back. The quarry, however, was active for a few years and then abandoned. Today the site is of considerable geological importance given the presence of a small extinct volcanic system (dating back to 250,000 years ago) that emerges from the limestone layers typical of the Umbrian Apennine area.

Polino e l’eremo di Sant’Antonio Abate. Foto FAI

Umbria of the hermits

The Hermitage of Sant’Antonio, dug into the rock, seems to date back to the 12th century. On the façade, built later, there is a small bell gable and an external holy water stoup near the entrance portal. Inside there are some frescoes of uncertain dating and two statues, depicting the saints Anthony of Padua and Anthony the Abbot to whom the site is dedicated. The hermitage is located along the mule track that goes up from Polino to the Cava dell’Oro used in the past to reach Monteleone di Spoleto. The interior consists of two rooms, one entirely dug into the rock and the other in masonry: in the small underground niche there is an image of Anthony the Abbot, the Egyptian anchorite whose cult is particularly recurrent in the magical and religious thought of the area.