What it is A waterfall that drops nearly a hundred metres down a limestone wall, inside a nature reserve at Morino, in the Roveto valley. It is the highest in the central Apennines, and the dialect name says it all: lo zompo is the leap, lo schioppo is the noise it makes. It is not one of those waterfalls that is simply always there. The thing to know before you set off The flow depends on snowmelt on the mountains above: in spring it is at its fullest, in high summer it can drop a long way. This is a waterfall fed by the mountain, not by a constant spring, and that decides everything. The best time is therefore spring, when the snow is coming off. Going in August hoping for the photograph you saw online is the surest way to come back disappointed. If you come in summer, ask us how it is looking before you get in the car: we know from here, and it is twenty kilometres. How the visit works It is twenty-six minutes from Capistrello, twenty kilometres down the Roveto valley to Morino. You leave the car and carry on into the reserve on foot. Longer trails also start from the reserve, for anyone who wants to make a day of it rather than a morning. The wood is damp and the rock near the fall is wet: smooth trainers are the wrong choice. What to pair it with It sits along the Roveto valley, the same direction as the villages and the chestnut woods. It makes sense to give it a day: the waterfall in the morning, then drop down slowly and stop where you feel like it. In autumn the flow is lower but the beeches turn, and for many people that is the better trade: less water, more wood.