The protected area of 28,000 hectares extends into the Gesso, Stura e Vermenagna valleys, including the municipalities of Aisone, Entracque, Roaschia, Valdieri and Vernante in the places it protects. Since 1987 it has been twinned with the Parc National du Mercantour, which extends on the French side along a shared border stretching 35 kilometres. Since 2016, the Natural Park of the Maritime Alps has been part of the Ente di Gestione delle Aree protette delle Alpi Marittime together with the Marguareis Natural Park and eight nature reserves in the Province of Cuneo.

The park’s heart and symbol are the crystalline Argentera-Mercantour massif, where the Maritime Alps culminate with the 3,297 metre southern peak of the Argentera. The Marittime Alps are harsh, tough mountains, whose rocky walls plummet with great differences in height, carved by narrow and deep valleys. Less than 50 kilometres from the Côte d’Azur, there are less than 24 peaks exceeding an altitude of 3,000 metres: their slopes hide spectacular glacial cirques, over 80 high-altitude lakes in an unreal shade of blue and the remains of the southernmost glaciers of the Alps.

The park hosts an exceptional variety of flower species. About 2,000 species have been counted within its species, equivalent to about a quarter of the entire Italian flora. Many are endemic plants, impossible to find in the rest of the world, such as the Saxifraga dall’Argentera (Saxifraga florulenta), the viola di Valderi (Viola valderia) and the primrose of Allioni (Primula allionii). The fauna in the area is also varied and rich: chamois, ibex and marmots are frequently encountered along the trails in the park. Between the end of the 90s and the beginning of the third millennium, even the wolf naturally returned to these harsh valleys.

An extraordinary hiking network - with over 400 kilometres of marked itineraries - allows you to immerse yourself in the nature of the park along paths, mule tracks and military roads that are authentic masterpieces of naturalistic engineering. Fifteen welcoming shelters and ten bivouacs allow mountaineers and hikers to experience the mountains at high altitude. Crossed and inhabited for millennia, the Maritime Alps bear the marks of a recent history: ancient abandoned villages that witnessed the decline of Alpine civilization; the hunting lodges and chalets built by the kings of the House of Savoy; the alpine valley and the military roads which have today become paths of peace.