1. Lake Matese & the Matese Regional Park 2. Frassi Caves in Ancona
Lake
Matese (pictured) is the highest karst* lake in Italy. It is at the
foot of Mt. Miletto (2050 m/6200 feet) and Mt.
Gallinola (1923 m/6000 feet) in the local mountain
group known as the Matese massif. The lake is in
the province of Caserta in the Campania region,
about 70 km (45 miles) north-east of Naples. The
lake, itself is at 1,014 m/3000 feet. The lake
basin is fed by snow run-off from the surrounding
mountains as well as by some streams and rivers
that flow throughout the year. Nevertheless, the
existence of small sinkholes that channel lake
water into the vast underground waterworld of
ponds and streams typical of many karst areas) and
the removal of lake water for hydroelectric
purposes makes the water-level of the lake
inconstant. The greatest volume of water is in
May, at which time the lake has a circumference of
12 km/7.5 miles. Given the many interventions by
engineers to plug sink-holes and divert water, the
lake may be considered man-made—or, at least, -maintained.The Matese massif is the big mountainous block in the middle.
Lake Matese is the larger of the two blue spots staring out at you
from the center. The Volturno river runs just below it all.
The lake is
within the Matese Regional Park, one of the
protected natural areas in Campania and has been
in existence since 2002. The park administration
is in the town of San Potito Sannitico; it pursues
an active campaign to promote this little known—or
little visited—area of Italy. The Matese Regional
Park has an area of about 330 sq.km/130 sq.miles),
at the heart of which is not only the lake but the
very scenic surrounding valley. (In addition,
there are two other smaller lakes in the area: the
Matese Gallo and the Letino.) The marsh
environment of the area includes many types of
birds such as goose, teal, coot, mallard, stork,
flamingo, woodpecker, jay, owl and even the golden
eagle. (What about the Matese Falcon, you ask? I
don't know!) Among fish species are northern pike,
trout, tench, carp, and perch. Fauna includes fox,
marmot, badger, hare, boar, and the wolf, spotted
regularly! Trees includes holm oak, chestnut,
beech, ash and fir. There are two important rivers
that traverse the park, the Titerno and the
Tammaro. 
The entire
massif is, as noted, a karst formation, and, as
such is honeycombed with limestone caves and their
fascinating cave formations (technically called speleothems)
such as stalagmites (they go up) and stalactites
(they come down). (The image on the right is
beneath the area known as Campo Braca and is a
formation described as a "flowstone with
curtains.") Such caves are an extremely attractive
target for sport spelunking (or caving or whatever
the term is for "fun-loving troglodyte"!) To date,
the recorded and studied caves number over 80, but
at least as many more are known and in the course
of exploration. One of the most popular is the
1,048-meter (c.3400) feet deep (!) Pozzo del
Neve (snow well) in the north-eastern sector
of the mountain. Although many such caves, large
and small, are clearly not for beginners, a few
have been set aside for the average tourist. So if
you are not up to rappelling down more than half a
mile of the great Snow Well, you can try, for
example, the nearby Caccaviola
Gorge [precise translation: "Purple
Turd Gorge!! really] in which one is aided
by specialized guides and tested safety cables and
other equipment. The massif is also an area rich
in fossils. There are at least half a dozen small
museums in the 20 small towns in the area of the
park that will be happy to explain all of this to
you.Caving in the Matese massif
The area is
of extreme interest historically. At the end of
the early Iron Age (make it around 700 BC), while
the Tyrrhenian coast was getting most of the rave
revues with Greek settlements such as Pithecusa, Poseidonia, and Elea), the inland had the
mysterious and influential Etruscans,
and in the Matese lurked the tenacious —and
everyone say truly nasty— Samnites,
the warriors who fought the Romans to a standstill
on many occasions before succumbing. These are the
mountains through which passed wave after wave of
successors to the Roman Empire such as the Goths, Vandals, and Lombards. Even today,
the area is dotted with sacred caves and old
fortifications that were put in place to resist Saracen incursions from
the coast. The area is also dotted with remnants
of the early kingdom of Naples put there by the
Normans, Swabians and Angevins. So, besides the
lake you have a few thousand years of history and
a few million years of geology. Go there. Now.*Karst: Landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks including limestone, dolomite and gypsum. The word, itself, is the German name of Kras, an area in Italy and Slovenia, where it is called Carso and where the phenomenon was first studied. Karst areas are characterized by sinkholes, caves, underground drainage systems and collapse triggered by the development of underlying caves (Reference: Palmer, A.N., 1991., "Origin and morphology of limestone caves" in the Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 103, p 1-21.
all photos above except the map by Napoli Underground (NUg)
Bonus Cave! [thanks to Annemarie Brown for bringing this to my attention]
added Nov 14
Go for the Beauty, Stay for the Snot
This is in central Italy,
but it's worth the trip. Most people go to the
Frasassi Caves (image, right) near
Ancona (on the eastern side of Italy, on the
Adriatic, 280 crow-fly km/175 mi north of Naples)
because the caves are among the most spectacular
"show-caves" in Italy. They were discovered in
1971 and opened in 1974. You get the Cave of the
Bats (self-explanatory), the Great Cave of Wind
(with 13 km/8 miles) of passageways, and the
Ancona Abyss, a room so large that Milan's Duomo
(the world's largest Gothic cathedral) could fit
inside it. If you are crazy about karst, this is
for you. [Definition of "karst", last
section of item above]
But,
there's more! Look at the image (left).
That is snottite. (I'm delicate and
phlegmatic, so I would have called it something
else.) After work in the Frasassi Caves,
spelunking scientists reported to a meeting of the
American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on
cave-dwelling bacteria ("snottites"),
microorganisms that live on cave walls and
ceilings, dripping and coating the floors with
thick mats. These microorganism speed up cave
formation. Caves are carved in limestone rock by
the sulfuric acid that forms when rainwater seeps
down and mixes with the hydrogen sulfide in
underground stale water. These particular
bacteria, snottites, eat hydrogen sulfide and
produce sulfuric acid as a waste product. That's
more sulfuric acid to carve more cave with. Yes,
it's that simple. (photo, left, Daniel S. Jones, Penn
State)to underground portal to top of this page
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