The territory that House Centre Italy is active in forms part of the
Parco del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga which was constituted in 1991 and includes the three regions of Abruzzo, Lazio and Marche, as well as the five provinces
of L'Aquila, Pescara, Teramo, Ascoli Piceno and Rieti and 44 municipalities.
The area, which is prevalently mountainous extends from the Monti Gemelli to MonteGorzano whose peak (2458mt) constitutes the highest elevation of this mountain system. The area embraces the municipalities of Teramo, Rocca Santa Maria and Torricella Sicura.
Once, the territories were divided into what were called, Università Agrarie and some of these, such as the Antica Univesità Agraria di Rocca S. Maria, are of considerable fame and date back to a period preceding the Roman Republic and the Università delle Terre Morricane.
This western versant of the Park is covered in lush vegetation and hosts such tree species as secular beeches, oaks, chestnuts, pines and poplars which, with their multi-coloured leaves, surround the verdent fields.
Rich in springs, its waters flowed toward the sea , creating on their way the various rivers and streams that created this suggestive pastoral landscape.
The gentle, relaxing, landscape gives host to small clusters of hamlets, all built in the local sandstone of a warm tonality that gives it its characteristic tone or in white sandstone.
Visitors, to this ideal, natural environment, find a visit to the pleasant woods are often rewarded with delicacies that the area offers such as mushrooms, truffles, nuts, chestnuts and berries. The flora offers a natural frame to the fauna which is rich in Appennine chamois, wolves, deer. boars, pellegrine falcons and royal eagles.
The inhabitants of the hamlets lived on agriculture, animal breeding and in a lesser fashion, on woodcutting and the production of coal.
Each settlement used the local resources, developing the crafts and trades necessary for survival while the exchange and bartering of goods outside the territory was almost inexistent. These customs and crafts are well represented in the ethnographic exhibit
of "Le genti della Laga"