Italy
Campo Imperatore
A vast high plateau called Italy's Little Tibet, barren, wind-scoured, impossibly empty.
The plateau stretches to every horizon — treeless, wind-scoured, impossibly empty. Grass ripples like water under a sky so large it presses down on you. There is nothing here that softens the landscape: no villages, no fences, no shelter. Just altitude, light, and the distant wall of the Gran Sasso massif catching cloud.
Campo Imperatore in Abruzzo is a high-altitude plateau stretching approximately 27 kilometres at an elevation of around 1,800 metres in the Gran Sasso massif. Its nickname — Italy's Little Tibet — reflects the barren, wind-exposed character of the terrain, which supports semi-wild horses, wolves, and one of the few remaining Apennine bear populations. The Hotel Campo Imperatore, perched at 2,130 metres, is where Mussolini was imprisoned in 1943 before Otto Skorzeny's glider-borne rescue — an event that made the plateau briefly world-famous. The landscape has served as a stand-in for Tibet, the Mongolian steppe, and the American West in dozens of Italian films. In winter, the plateau transforms into a ski area served by a cable car from the village of Fonte Cerreto. In summer, it is one of the most dramatic hiking landscapes in the Apennines.
Solo
Campo Imperatore is solitude made physical. Hike the plateau alone and the emptiness becomes the point — no distractions, no waymarks, just the sound of wind and the shadow of clouds moving across grass.
Friends
Mountain biking across the plateau, summiting the Corno Grande, or skiing the Gran Sasso slopes in winter — Campo Imperatore is for groups who want landscape that fights back. Refuel with arrosticini at a roadside grill on the way down.
- The observatory on the plateau was built in 1951 — the dark skies here are among the clearest in central Italy, and stargazing visits run in summer.
- Mussolini was held under house arrest at the Hotel Campo Imperatore in 1943 — Otto Skorzeny's glider-borne commando raid landed on the plateau to extract him; the hotel still operates.
- Horse trekking across the plateau is offered from Castel del Monte — the terrain is large enough for multi-day routes without crossing a road.
- Camera traps have recorded Apennine wolves and Marsican brown bears on the plateau at night — both species live in the surrounding Gran Sasso park.
Lamb arrosticini over charcoal at a roadside grill, the smoke mixing with mountain air.
Mountain ricotta and saffron from the Navelli plain, two products that define this altitude.
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