GPS Itineraries in the Italian Parks

What GPS is

GPS (Global Positioning System), is a world orientation system, giving you the opportunity to calculate your position, at any time and with a gap of a few meters, thanks to the "satellite navigator", that is an instrument able to interpret the signals of a network of satellites gravitating around the Earth.

This system was born thanks to the military efforts of the United States government, which has recently decided to liberalize the civil use, with a consequent exponential growth of the instruments available to the public: satellite navigators for yachting, for car driving, and thanks to the progress made in the miniaturization of the components, also for hiking.

Indeed, the roads are well-represented by very detailed digital atlantes which are able to contain in a few Mb the whole road network of the country: by combining such atlantes within GPS satellite navigators (which are usually called only GPS) you can obtain several detailed maps, where your position will be always updated, giving the opportunity to visualize in real time the whole network of roads, streets, and alleys surrounding you while you are driving your car in Milan or in Rome.

What about GPS within a Park?

Of course, in this case things do change! The paths, also the busiest ones, have been not yet digitalized for GPS; moreover, sometimes a few meters of rock or a particularly thick wood are enough to make you lose the signal of one or more satellites, so that the GPS orientation operations become less precise, or even ineffective.

Despite this, a GPS track, above all if validated by the Park Authority, can be a further funny way to come closer to a particular place, by exploiting the intermediate signals and remarks the Park Authority has decided to place along the route.

Let's begin to experiment it!

The market offers several portable instruments weighting only a few pounds, giving the opportunity to easily discover your position; on them you can also download the files which will soon be available free of charge in this page.

Download them, and go along the routes for their whole length: you will discover that having always an answer to the geographical question "where am I" it is not the same that smelling the fragrance of the wood and that at the end of the route, after enjoying with GPS, you will be entirely "entrapped" by the Park which has wisely chosen the route to suggest you in this page!

Parco Adamello Brenta

Around the lake of Tovel (Parco Adamello Brenta - TN)

• Download the file of the itinerary (3 kb)
• length: about 1 hour and a half
• min. altitude: 1,050 meters above sea level
• max. altitude: 1,100 meters above sea level
  

Riserva Naturale di Monte Catillo

With GPS in Riserva Naturale di Monte Catillo

Riserva Naturale di Monte Catillo, dominating the Municipality of Tivoli, offers unforgettable walks in an environment of great naturalistic value for the variety of botanic and faunistic species. Moreover, it is interesting for hikers for the wonderful views it offers over the Roman countryside, the Aniene Valley, and up to the first Apennine spurs.

Download GPS trails

Riserva Naturale Macchia di Gattaceca e Macchia del Barco

Strolling around with GPS in Riserva di Gattaceca

We suggest an experimental download of a stretch of itinerary in the Reserve, which can be visualized and followed with GPS.
The “trail” regards the Blue Trail crossing the wood of Macchia di Gattaceca for about 2,6 kilometers.

Further information (Italian text)

Download GPS trail

• www.parks.it