I worked in the Natural Park as a ranger for several years. 
The pictures below show some activty in the park: they are taken 
from the ??? issue of the magazine Oasis.

OASIS -SERGIO MUSUMECI EDITORE
SERGIO MUSUMECI EDITORE - 11020 Quart (AO) - L.tà Amerique, 99 

One can wonder why leaving a job in a Natural Park on the italian Alps,
to join some high energy physics lab's in other countries. Well, as in
any dream job there are downsides: salary, bureaucracy, human environment.
The salary was too ashemful to mention. Concerning the administrative aspects, 
the park certainly didn't enjoy a great deal of support from the Regione Piemonte
that instituted it in 1980. Very little margin of initiative was left to the operators. 
Let's say, lack of view and planning (I wish they had made the effort of copying
from existing experiences, like the France neiborough parks or the long term
established italian ones). As a results, visitors would have found difficulties to 
understand that they were somehow entering a ''special'' area and to find 
guidances or basic informations. The human environment is of course the
most important for enjoying a job: the fun could be severely affected by personal tensions
 ("L'enfer, c'est les autres" - J.P. Sartre).
I had very good relationship and good fun with my colleagues, the clerical and the
technical staff. Also we all agreed in our opinion on the Director. This individual
(incidentally, he was the genero of the previous temporary director, and 
won the open competition for the position, quite a remarcable coincidence, finding
two directors in the same family!) made the 
hunanimity of judjements around him: I recollect words like idiot, arrogant, incapable, 
self opinioned, asshole. I was so bad that eventually he was moved to a different 
assignement, 100 km apart (possibly the only case in the history of italian bureaucracy)!
So, these downsides can seriously spoil the charme of the job! Nonetheless, the park is a 
nice place and I recommend a visit. Here you find a few links with some basics information
on the protected area (again, room for improvement on these sites). 

Feeding is a necessity, but one can have pleasure out of it!
So I compile a commented list of a few restaurant in various places. 
Maybe it can be of some use to the rare reader of this pages who happens
to visit  some of these places.
Rome:

Renato e Luisa - Via dei Barbieri 25 tel. 06-6869660 (no on monday)
City centre, good and not too expensive: try the various starters.

I Butteri  Piazza Regina Margherita n. 28-31
tel. 06-8548130
Not far from where you are staying, it's good for only one thing: 
extremely good (and big) Fiorentina steak (of course rare)

Ristorante - pizzeria Zi Gaetana - Via Cola di Rienzo 263 tel. 06-3212342
A decent restaurant-pizzeria

Sardinian restaurant (weird name can't remember) Via dei Serpenti 8-9 tel.
06-4884713-4743617 (no domenica) Good traditional food from Sardegna

Good tradiational Rome food, very tipical location (Trastevere): 
Taverna Trilussa Via Politeama 21 tel. 06-5811064

City centre, very good value for money, trditional Roman rest.
 Da Gino - Vicolo Rosini 4 - 06-6873434 (no
domenica)


Grotty Ristorante-Pizzeria,
autentic roman pizza (thin and crispy), non-expensive.
Recommended the ''Cicoria and salsiccia (green vegetables and sausage)
Il Podista Via Tiburtina 244 (Piazzale del Verano) tel.
06-44700967

Very good autentic roman pizza is Remo, Piazza Santa Maria Liberatrice
but I don't have phone number: they don't take booking though.

Where not to go:
In Rome: Il convivio Troiani
Extremely expensive Restaurant, horrible food, deceiving wine list offered by
the thouroughly incompetent owner. Highly disappointing, outrageously 
expensive. Give it a miss!

Valencia:
Pl. Canovas Castillo, Tapas Restaurant Canovas
Pl. del Carmen, Restaurant Barbacoa


Sulle Orcadi:
Restaurant The Creel - St. Margaret's hope, 01856 832322
It's probably the most known restaurant in the Orkney's, and certainly the price accounts 
for it. I keep not understanding why, when a restaurant stands in the poshy side, it feels obliged
to provide the customers with small portions, though served in enormous dishes. 
This restaurant goes even further on this route: the food has not only to be little, but
possibly tasteless. It certainly failed to impress me (a part from the bill).
I found much better (and cheaper) the less pretentious restaurant The Sand, just a few miles further north
(??????????????).

You can find great see food sold in several places on the coast road.
We bought a lobster (10£), a big and very juicy crab (10£) and a cooked
and smoked home made salmon (it made a really excellent pasta) from a van parked on the
A838 west of Durness that sells fish catched in the Loch Eriboll (apparently the deepest 
loch of UK).


B&B 
Brora: Nice and clean, the richest breakfast I've ever tried in a B&B. Very good location, by the little harbour
of Brora and a few minutes walk to a seal colony.
Sanday: the owners are passionate with the environment and have a deep knowledge of
the variety of birds populating or passing by the island. Friendly hospitality, can provide 
full catering at very advantegeous prices.