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Typical variegated landscape of Mediterranean woodland The Woods Bronte has a territory extraordinarily various and ample, one of the more extensive
of Catania's province with 25.000 hectares and a height from 380 to 3350
meters. Rich of vegetation, it is characterized by the majestic size of Etna that impend
over the town, by green and fecund hills and high mounts that slope down
sweetly towards the big valleys, where rivers and torrents flow (Simeto,
Troina, Saraceno, Martello, Cutò). Represents a true catalogue of natural beauties distinguished by a
singular alternation of vegetation and cultivations, both heterogeneous
as luxuriant. Suggestive lava landscapes frame the agricultural cultivations, with valuable
orchards, olive groves, pistachio fields, and
centenary woods enriched by torrents and small lakes. You must go to Bronte to enjoy the most majestic view of mount Etna. Only in Bronte it appears in all the accord, in all the purity, in all the
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The territory of bronte extends from the top of
the Central Crater (3.350 m.) to that one of the Mount
Soro (1847 m.) on the Nebrodi
and falls inside the two wonderful park, of Etna (to which
gives nearly 10.000 hectares) of the Nebrodi
(3.871
hectares of which 1.495 in the zone A of integral reserve)
and of the natural reserve of the Simeto lava grottos.
The woods of Bronte
The woods of Bronte
(put, in the parts not covered by lava, below
Etna and, especially, on the Nebrodi) represent the
typical variegated landscape of Mediterranean woodland
and one of the last zones that still can give us at least an idea of
what was once the appearance of Sicily. It is a true mosaic of vegetal formations, a collection of trees, of bushes and flowers.
Follow,
one after the other pines, birches and century-old oaks, the helm-oak, the cork,
the beech, the ash, the maple, the elm, the chestnut, the walnut, the
cherry tree and even the wild pear tree, the thorn bush,
the holly and the butcher's broom, the hawthorn, the broom, (important
colonizer of recent lava). To the Nebrodi Park Bronte
gives over 15% of its territory, with zones of singular importance
as the well known Mangalaviti wood,
the Grappidà
forest, the formations of Serra
del Re (1.754 m.) and
Foresta Vecchia that represent, together to other
woods of the entire park, the last testimonies of the island's
green with presence of extremely specialized flora (the Beech, authentic wreck of the glacial era).
 The
heterogeneity of vegetal formations and the presence of a great
number of ecologic niches allow the existence of a true
"Noah' ark" with a high faunal diversity with rich
and complex animal communities.
Even having to admit the disappearance of the mythical big
mammals (deer, fallow deer, bear, roe deer, wild pig, wolf,
griffon, etc.), the present fauna, in the woods of Bronte,
has still a notable variety and quantity of animals and birds
(only on the
Nebrodi there are about 150 species of birds).
Is not rare to see some of the animals that still live in these
areas:
the fox, the weasel, the marten, the wild cat, the dormouse,
the porcupine, the curly, the musk rat (the "Felis silvestris
silvestris"), the green lizard, the tortoise and the turtle;
among the birds there are magpies,
owls and hawks, crows, woodpeckers, woodcocks, partridges,
falcons and kites.
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In the area comprised between the mounts Ruvolo, Lepre and De
Fiore, at the feet of Etna, has come back to nest and live the Royal
Eagle, brought back in the territory, some years ago, by the Park authorities.
Multicolored and diversified are the typical flowers of
the underbrush; especially in spring, they dot the landscape
with chromatic effects of rare suggestion.
Many the flowers as the anemone, the butter cup, the asphodel, the sylvan
violet, the astragal, the cyclamen, the soapwort, the peony rose, the canine
rose, the primrose, the valerian (or "spezzaquartari)",
the thistle, the chamomile.
Most significant is the presence of some species of spontaneous orchids (vulgarly called "pizzingurdu").
Only in the woods and lava of Etna have been found more than 200 species
of flowers, some exclusive to the volcano, rare or very rare in the territory.
The colors, the scenery, the vegetation, the fauna, all the natural landscape, naturally depend strictly to the various seasons:
 the spring, therefore shall offer the
lushness of the flowered underbrush, clear skies of a deep blue, torrents
water rich and a mild climate;
summer shall show the trees dressed
with a luxurious green mantle rich of a thousand shades;
in autumn shall explode in all their
beauty the yellow, the red, the dark, the brown of the beech and of
the walnut;
the winter, at last, shall
enrich these beautiful places with ice arabesques, while a blanket
of snow shall sweeten further the mountains profiles.
The rich vegetation, the environment, the landscape, the magnificent
panoramic points of the local woods, are the antithesis,
what could be farter, from the more common image of Sicily, parched by the sun. The bronte's woods of the Etna and Nebrodi parks are localities of
exiting excursions in a nature still alive and uncontaminated. The vegetal landscape, variable and complex, is rich of smell,
sounds, fruits and flavors, nowadays forgotten in the frenetic
running of modern life.
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