멘타나 주변 최고의 교통량 없는 자전거 라이딩 코스

Slightly hidden and covered by bush but still interesting to observe along the way

Mentana, 20 km from Rome, is a village in the Roman Sabina area known for its Sabina DOP extra virgin olive oil and the Macchia di Gattaceca Nature Reserve. The meeting between Charlemagne and Pope Leo III and the Battle of Mentana in 1867, led by Garibaldi, took place here. The village preserves historical monuments such as the Baronial Palace and the Capuchin Convent. The MuGa – Garibaldino Museum commemorates the heroes of the Risorgimento. Mentana is also famous for festivals dedicated to culinary specialties such as ciammella a cancellu and maccheroni a centonara, and for traditional celebrations such as that of Sant'Antonio Abate.

The nature reserve extends over about a thousand hectares between the Tiber Valley and the Cornicolani Mountains, in the Roman Sabina. The landscape is hilly, with pasture areas, crops and fragments of woods, remnants of the original forests. The area is known for its botanical value and for karst phenomena such as caves and sinkholes, including the Pozzo del Merro, one of the deepest in the world. The reserve also preserves historical evidence, from prehistory to the Middle Ages.

Gattaceca offers many trails to explore.

The Gattaceca scrub is always a spectacle of colours.

The first inhabited center of Stazzano Vecchio was probably built on the remains of a Roman settlement. The term "Stazzano", in fact, could derive from the Latin statio, with the dual meaning of "place of a garrison", or "Post Station". Even today the origins of Stazzano are not clear but it seems certain that a town developed around a castle, built between the 10th and 11th centuries by the Savelli family, a powerful family that influenced the historical events of this part of Lazio. The castle and the town passed into the hands of the Borghese family between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Access to the town consisted of a single door that opened between the outermost tower of the castle and the Church of Santa Maria, a distinguishable sign that Stazzano had been conceived as a "village-castle". A terrible seismic event which occurred on 24 April 1901, with its epicenter in nearby Montelibretti and calculated at the VIII degree of the Mercalli Scale, put an end to the peaceful peasant life. From that moment on, the village of Stazzano was inevitably abandoned and the ruins of the houses were used to build the new town a short distance away. https://www.lazionascosto.it/citta-fantasma-borghi-abbandonati-del-lazio/stazzano-vecchio/

One of the several singletracks inside the Reserve, you enter from the side of the motorway facing Mezzaluna to exit on the provincial road that connects Monterotondo with Castelchiodato. It does not require particular technical skills, the only precaution in autumn and winter is that the bottom can be slippery due to mud and fallen leaves

Spectacular Gravel or XC climb. Long and with steep sections. I did it in BDC both there and back and it was extreme ...