Po Delta Park

Ravenna displays an evocative and unique natural environment, preserved in safeguarded areas or reservations mostly part of the Regional Po Delta Park, which hosts interesting animal and plant species and heterogeneous habitats  such as valleys, salt pans, lagoons, woods.

PO DELTA PARK

Punta Alberete and the Piallassa Baiona are extremely important wet areas, proof of the ancient swamps that used to surround Ravenna.

The Pineta of San Vitale and the Pineta of Classe, first belonging to two Benedictine monasteries of Ravenna and now property of the city, are unique and still release the charm that attracted Dante and Botticelli, Boccaccio and Byron, Oscar Wilde and D'Annunzio.

A cycle itinerary links the Basilica of S. Apollinare in Classe to the Pineta of Cervia, crossing the whole Pineta of Classe (13 km altogether).

The Delta, due to the extension of its salty coast lagoons, always had salt pans, that is to say areas where sea salt naturally set down during the summer evaporation.

Since prehistory, men took advantage of this fundamental resource and it is known that people from Umbria and Veneto used to come to stock up salt during summer. The Salina of Cervia has Etruscan origins and made the town important and rich for centuries. Nowadays the Salina, still working, has a surface of 828 hectares and has 144 tanks.

At the entrance of the Salina, on state highway 16, you can find a Park's qualified visitor centre.

In the hinterland, instead, inside the newly restored Palazzone of Sant’Alberto, there is NatuRA, the natural sciences museum of Ravenna dedicated to Alfredo Brandolini. The museum displays a lot of historical collections of local fauna and educational areas, also dedicated to the history of Ravenna's pine forests.