Frassati Trail
What is our perception of Nature and spirituality? This trail will immerse us in this combination of sensory experience that is difficult to perceive in other places.
Route info
MUNICIPALITIES AFFECTED: Arena, Mongiana, Serra San Bruno (VV)
DEPARTURE: tower of San Michele (back of the Charterhouse of Serra San Bruno)
ARRIVAL: tower of San Michele (back of the Charterhouse of Serra San Bruno)
ROUTE TIME: about 8 hours
DISTANCE: 21.34 km
DEVELOPMENT: 254 m
MAXIMUM ALTITUDE: 1,114 m above sea level.
MINIMUM ALTITUDE: 860 m above sea level.
DIFFICULTY: medium
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Description
The route is circular, mostly on dirt road. A perfect itinerary to spend a day in the woods and enjoy extraordinarily beautiful landscapes. Named after Pier Giorgio Frassati, who found in the power of nature a reminder of the values of the spirit. Here nature holds its highest expression, where the abundant and lush vegetation turns out to be intact.
The trail stretches between Mongiana and Serra San Bruno and can be walked in stages or in its entirety, where the first stage Certosa-Santa Maria del Bosco is also accessible to people with disabilities, an added value in this trail of the Serre Regional Nature Park.
It goes to combine the spiritual, historical and naturalistic aspects, but also includes traces of industrial archaeology (Royal Bourbon Ironworks of Mongiana) and local traditions, represented by the rare presence of the last coal miners. One novelty is the museum trail, that of the Carthusian Monastery of Serra San Bruno, which for the first time is part of a hiking trail.
The trail falls within the Santa Maria del Bosco SCI (Site of Community Importance), where there is flora and fauna of high environmental interest. In the first part the Frassati trail has a magical atmosphere, it seems to hear voices from the past. Men who worked the ferrous material, stonemasons who quarried the granite, the coal miners who prepared the fuel for the smelter and to heat the cold winters.
Initially we are immersed in a mystical and spiritual experience, given the presence of the Carthusian monastery of San Bruno and the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Bosco, places that should definitely be visited; traversing this initial stretch there is the constant presence of pure Abies alba fir trees and majestic beech trees, which enrich the sensory experience of hikers.
The stages are multiple:
- Charterhouse – Santa Maria del Bosco;
- Santa Maria – Springs of the Ancinale River;
- Ancinale River springs – Pietra Marcata;
- Pietra Marcata – Villa Vittoria Pond;
THE CERTOSA
First Carthusian Convent in Italy and second of the entire Order, located in the picturesque woods on the outskirts of Serra San Bruno. The walls of the convent stand out solemnly amid the greenhouses, where one can immediately sense the spirituality of the place. It is a complex founded between 1090 and 1101 by Brunone of Cologne, on land donated by Roger I of Altavilla (the Norman) to the founder of the Carthusian Order and the Grand Chartreuse near Grenoble, who, scandalized by the corruption of the clergy, had withdrawn to the solitude of the Serres woods. Today only a few friars live in the Carthusian monastery, which can be seen every Monday during their walk in the woods. Absolutely forbidden is access to women inside the Charterhouse, as legend has it that if this were the case, the earth would begin to shake. Nor is a visit allowed to the impressive Library inside, but only to the Museum, which collects the most significant evidence of art in the Carthusian Monastery and the life led by the Carthusian Monks. The Carthusian Monastery also houses the silver bust of the patron saint of Serra, where relics are kept inside.
SANTA MARIA DEL BOSCO
Nestled among centuries-old White Spruces and among young Beech trees, the complex of the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del bosco is Serra San Bruno’s major tourist and religious attraction, the place where Saint Bruno of Cologne lived the last ten years of his life and died. One will find oneself as in an “Oasis” in the middle of the woods, with the picturesque pond, where St. Bruno prayed immersed in the icy waters as a sign of penance. Walking down the granite staircase, built in the 1950s by the last stonemasons of Serra, we reach the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del bosco, rebuilt after the 1783 earthquake on the remains of the ancient church erected by San Bruno to gather the monks in prayer. Inside, the church has very simple lines and some pieces of art from the ancient Carthusian monastery, while the 19th-century wooden statue of St. Mary of the Woods stands out on the high altar.
On the opposite side of the shrine, we find the “dormitory of St. Bruno,” the place where the monk was buried.
THE ROYAL BOURBON IRONWORKS
The Royal Bourbon Ironworks at Mongiana was an important iron and steel complex built in 1770 – 1771 by the Bourbon dynasty of Naples.
An integral part of the industrial and military complex of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and a basic plant for the production of ferrous materials and semi-finished products, also finished on site for the production of weapons and other works viewable in the dedicated museum. That complex even came to employ about 1,500 workers in 1860.
Today present the Museum and the remains of the Ironworks, it is definitely an important stop on the Frassati Trail.