The "Little Tibet" of Italy and Spaghetti Westerns

What do Spaghetti Westerns have to do with Campo Imperatore, sometimes called the "little Tibet" of Italy? That question was answered yesterday on the way to hike in this stunning area with my husband and friends. Campo Imperatore is a large plateau 4921 feet above sea level, 18.6 miles long and 6.2 miles wide and overlooked by  the tallest peak in the Apennine Mountains and located in the Gran Sasso National Park.

Turns out that some of the Spaghetti Westerns, so-called in the US (called Italian Westerns in Italy), were filmed here. I could just imagine it as we drove along. Miles and miles of open, uninterrupted  land with hills and mountains in the distance. I pictured the cowboys on their horses galloping freely and doing all those things that cowboys do. I imagined the delight of the directors in finding this gem of a location which looks like the old wild west of the US. As if to oblige my musings, we even saw some horses grazing along the way.

But, back to the Italian Westerns; they were a sub-genre of Western films dating from the mid-1960's. Sergio Leone was probably the most famous of the Italian directors and among the best known of his films were: "A Fistful of Dollars", "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", and "Once Upon a Time in the West". Ironically, they were originally released in Italian by a man who spoke no English and had never visited the US, but nonetheless redefined the image of the cowboy. They further expanded to include other directors in Italy and Europe and were then called European Westerns. Over 600 European Westerns were made between 1960-1980.

We had our first glimpse of Corno Grande, the highest peak (9500 feet) in the Gran Sasso Range of the Apennine Mountains, as we turned a corner near our hike destination in Campo Imperatore:

The rewards for hiking up to 7800, besides the exhilaration of good physical exertion on an absolutely crystal clear, 74 degree day, were these views:

Corno Picolo:

Corno Grande:

Flags of Italy and the European Union put up on top by the Club Alpino Italiano:

A happy hiker at the top:

What is exhilarating you this summer?