Spending a day walking outdoors and enjoying the sun and fresh air is a real panacea for health and the spirit; then if you have the opportunity to visit a park that has a high naturalistic and environmental value then it is a fortune not to be missed. The Alta Murgia National Park, a treasure of flora and fauna formally recognized in 2004, extends along the Murgese plateau for a vast area of 68,000 hectares, including thirteen municipalities.
The Alta Murgia landscape is designed by the limestone rock, always present and constantly used to build typical peasant structures such as low walls, cisterns, jazzi, straw huts and milking. The territory offers a varied and ideal habitat for a multitude of animal and plant species and boasts truly unique landscapes and endless horizons. The protected area of the park includes the numerous municipalities and among these those that are part of the Castel del Monte Doc Wine Route are: Andria, Corato, Ruvo di Puglia, and Minervino Murge;
Kilometers and kilometers of dry stone walls that delimit fields, sheep tracks, watering holes, roads, cisterns and specchie. Alta Murgia is a territory with a great naturalistic and environmental variety; it is an example of a Mediterranean pseudo-steppe, home to dog rose and wild orchids that color and perfume the undergrowth during the flowering period.
Numerous rare and precious faunal specimens find an ideal habitat, for example the lesser kestrel, hares, foxes, stone martens, buzzards and kestrels. Visiting the park you can choose from a great variety of paths that follow gentle slopes, passing through old peasant structures, landscapes that open as far as the eye can see to enjoy fantastic sunsets, rich blooms of almond trees, thyme and asphodels, and old trulli .
In the locality of San Magno, in the territory of Corato, a delightful example of a snow church is still preserved, surrounded by greenery: it is the church of San Magno, once destined not only to the religious function, but also to the collection and conservation of the snow to be used. in the warmer months as a coolant. For a tasty lunch break you can take advantage of the many farms scattered around the area, almost all have the kitchen and dining area open to the public and offer only local products or their own production. If, on the other hand, you prefer to have a packed breakfast and rest in the cool, you can take advantage of the shade of a large oak, which perhaps you will have to share with some flocks, if Castel del Monte appears in the background, you know that it is not a stroke of luck, because the he ancient manor dominates the whole territory and its view is almost always present.
