Perjury and greed, according to legend, are supposed to be the reasons why earth pyramids reach toward the sky in Collepietra instead of lush, green and fertile meadows.

Children of erosion

Heavy storms, the “punishment of God”, are in fact the cause of these unique and extremely rare natural landmarks. Where glaciers deposited moraine clay during the ice age, heavy rainfall formed a clay paste that slowly flowed down into the valley. Harder material, such as larger rocks, protected the underlying clay from the rain: over the millennia pillars of up to 30 metres in height were formed, each complete with its own “hat”.