Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

The Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis, at Tarquinia, is a state nature reserve of about 170 hectares stretching along the Tyrrhenian coast of the municipality of Tarquinia, in the province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio. The official name under which it appears in the records is Tarquinia Salt Pans State Nature Reserve, code EUAP0085 in the list of Italian protected natural areas, and the act that created it is a decree of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests dated January 25, 1980, which establishes it as an animal population nature reserve because of its importance for migratory and resident birdlife under the Ramsar convention on wetlands. Its management, initially entrusted to the State Forestry Corps, now rests with the Carabinieri Biodiversity Grouping of the Forestry, Environmental and Agri-food Units Command of the Carabinieri, and in particular with the Carabinieri Biodiversity Unit of Rome. Since 1995 the area has been recognized as a site of community importance and since 2017 also as a special protection zone of the Natura 2000 network.

The thing worth making clear right away, before any other consideration, concerns the nature of the place: it is not a city park with a gate and a ticket office, and not an equipped beach either. It is a state reserve with high protection, where access is regulated and visits take place with prior authorization from the managing body, consistent with the priority aim of protecting species and habitats. Anyone who arrives thinking they will park and slip in among the pans to photograph flamingos starts off on the wrong foot. Anyone who instead organizes in time, or is content to read the landscape from the edge, from the public shoreline and from the road that runs toward Bagni di Sant'Agostino, takes home one of the most intense nature experiences on the whole coast north of Rome.

The second element to fix concerns history. These pans are not a primordial natural environment: they are an industrial plant built by people. Work began in 1802, when the Papal State decided to identify a suitable site to produce the salt needed to meet Rome's demand, in place of the Ostia salt pans, which had gradually moved away from the coastline. Salt production was gradually reduced over the 20th century until it stopped for good in 1997. Since then the pans no longer process salt, but they continue to function as a very high salinity wetland, and it is precisely that anomalous salinity that makes this strip of coast a rare environment in Italy and one very popular with birds.

Where the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis Is and How to Really Get There

The reserve's perimeter runs parallel to the sea in the coastal strip of the municipality of Tarquinia, between the area of Lido di Tarquinia to the northwest and the locality of Sant'Agostino to the southeast. It is a low, flat, brackish strip, enclosed between the shoreline and the countryside of the Lazio Maremma, with the dune acting as a barrier toward the sea and the rectangular pans following one another inland. Anyone looking at a map notices at once that the layout of the land is geometric, regular, artificial: the geometry belongs to the 19th-century salt works, while the life that fills it belongs to the nature that has taken the space back.

Those arriving by car from the south take the A12 Rome-Civitavecchia motorway and continue north to the Tarquinia exit, or follow State Road 1 Via Aurelia, which runs parallel to the coast and serves all the towns of the Etruscan coastline. From the exit you go down toward the sea following the signs for Porto Clementino, on Provincial Road 44, the road that links the upper part of Tarquinia to its coast and passes right next to the reserve area. Those arriving from the north, from the direction of Montalto di Castro and the Maremma, take the same Aurelia in the opposite direction. The coastal road linking Lido di Tarquinia to Sant'Agostino runs along the edge of the reserve: from there you see a lot, and you see it for free, with no authorization needed, because the public road and the state-owned shore remain outside the closed perimeter.

The train is a reasonable alternative for those who don't want to drive. The Tyrrhenian railway line that goes from Rome up toward Grosseto and Pisa serves the coast with stops in the coastal towns, and the station that bears the name of Tarquinia is in the lower area, toward the sea, not in the historic center perched on the plateau. From there to the edge of the protected area the trip is short, but it has to be covered by some vehicle or on foot along the coastal roads, because there is no city service designed to take visitors to the reserve. Those traveling by public transport must factor in this last stretch and organize it in advance, especially off season, when runs become less frequent.

What the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis Really Is: A State Reserve, Not an Equipped Park

The exact legal formula deserves attention, because it explains everything else. The 1980 decree establishes an animal population nature reserve: a category designed to protect not a landscape to be looked at, but a population of animals that needs that place to survive. The difference from a regional park organized for public use is substantial. In an equipped park the presence of visitors is part of the plan and is channeled into trails, visitor centers, panels, refreshment points. In an animal population reserve human presence is a variable to be contained, and every opening is evaluated on its compatibility with the nesting, migratory stopover and wintering of the species that live there.

The protected territory measures about 170 hectares, a surface that on the scale of Italian protected areas is small. This smallness is both the limit and the strength of the place: a limit because the reduced extent compresses the diversity of amphibians, reptiles, mammals and fish, which remain few in number compared with larger protected areas. A strength because the concentration of birds on such a contained surface produces observation densities that elsewhere would require kilometers of walking. On these 170 hectares about 220 species of birds have been recorded, migratory and resident. It is a number worth rereading slowly: 220 species on a surface of less than two square kilometers.

Inside the perimeter, different environments live side by side, touching each other within a few hundred meters. There are the pans proper, shallow basins of hypersaline water, that is, with a salt concentration higher than open sea, a direct legacy of the salt production cycle. There are the canals and clear pools that connect the pans with each other and with the sea, with waters of variable salinity. There are the packed-earth embankments that separate one basin from another and that host a very particular vegetation, adapted to a soil where salt surfaces. There is the dune strip that closes off the seaward side, with its classic sequence of sand-loving species. There are patches of reed bed and, in the inland part, tree rows and groves with pines, poplars and tamarisks. The site hosts seven habitats protected by the European Union Habitats Directive, including coastal lagoons and halophilous vegetation formations, that is, salt-loving ones.

The Pans, the Shoreline and the Dune: What Is Public and What Is Not

Precision is needed here, because the misunderstanding is common and produces avoidable disappointment. The Italian sea shore is public state property: the beach, as such, remains accessible, and the shoreline running in front of the reserve is no exception. Walking on the water's edge, looking at the sea, sunbathing on the sand of the Tarquinia coast are activities that nobody forbids. The matter is different for the interior of the protected perimeter, that is, the pans, embankments, canals and nesting areas: that portion is not freely accessible and entry is by authorization.

The ways in which the managing body allows visits are oriented to organized groups and school classes, with a prior request addressed to the Carabinieri Biodiversity Unit of Rome, and permission is evaluated case by case according to compatibility with protection needs. There is not, as far as the managing body's sources show, a published opening time, an entrance fee or a fixed calendar of guided visits that you can consult the way you consult a museum's. Anyone who claims otherwise is adding information that the official sources do not contain. The correct way is to contact the competent unit in advance and make the request, allowing for response times and for the possibility that in the most delicate periods for the wildlife the answer will be no.

The coastal dune deserves a chapter of its own and one precise recommendation. Dune vegetation is extremely fragile: sea daffodil, sand couch-grass, spiny dune grass, sea bindweed and sea rocket build the stability of the sand ridge with their roots, and repeated trampling destroys them in a single season. Walking on the dune, even outside the protected perimeter, means taking apart piece by piece the coast's natural defense. On the same sand nests the Kentish plover, a small wader that lays its eggs directly in a hollow in the ground, with no built nest, with coloring so camouflaged that the eggs become invisible even a few steps away. Anyone who strolls on the wet sand and not the dry, and keeps the dog on a leash, greatly reduces the risk of doing damage without noticing.

A Curiosity About the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

The most beautiful curiosity concerns color. On the right days some pans take on shades ranging from pale pink to reddish, and the explanation has nothing to do with the light of sunset or an optical effect. The color comes from a living organism: a green microalga called Dunaliella salina, recorded among the species present in the reserve, able to thrive in waters with salt concentrations that would kill almost any other form of life. When salinity rises and the light grows intense, this alga produces large quantities of carotenoids, orange-red pigments that serve it as protection against excess radiation. The result, seen from outside, is a basin that turns pink.

But the story doesn't end there, and the second part is what makes the matter truly elegant. In those same waters lives Artemia salina, a small branchiopod crustacean also on the reserve's species list, which feeds on the microalgae and accumulates in its tissues the carotenoids they produce. Flamingos filter the water and eat the crustaceans, and the carotenoids pass into their feathers. The flamingo's pink comes from the alga by way of the crustacean. A flamingo fed on a diet without these pigments would turn dirty white. The color everyone associates with this bird is the end product of a food chain that begins with a microscopic organism in a hypersaline pan.

A second curiosity, less colorful but just as significant, concerns a tiny fish. In the reserve's waters lives Aphanius fasciatus, known by the common name nono, a killifish that rarely exceeds five or six centimeters and that tolerates striking variations in salinity, passing without trouble from almost fresh waters to waters saltier than the sea. It is a species of conservation interest precisely because it is tied to these transitional environments, which in Italy have shrunk drastically. The male, in the breeding season, shows a livery of dark vertical bands on a light background that makes it immediately recognizable. Anyone looking at a pan sees seemingly empty water. Below the surface moves a population that few other Italian environments can host.

The Wildlife of the Salt Pans: Birds, Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles and Mammals

The census speaks of about 220 species of birds, migratory and resident, and the list of nesting species alone comfortably exceeds 40 entries. Among them are the cattle egret, the woodchat shrike, the pied avocet, the house martin, the barn owl, the short-toed lark, the reed warbler, the great reed warbler, the goldfinch, the black-winged stilt, the great tit, the blue tit, the long-tailed tit, the hooded crow, the little ringed plover, the mute swan, the cuckoo, the yellow wagtail, the common pheasant, the flamingo, the coot, the Kentish plover, the chaffinch, the moorhen, the little egret, the magpie, the mallard, the bee-eater, the night heron, the Italian sparrow, the tree sparrow, the penduline tit, the green woodpecker, the treecreeper, the barn swallow, the swift, the common tern, the corn bunting, the jackdaw, the little bittern, the Eurasian collared dove, the little grebe, the hoopoe, the common nightingale, the serin and the shelduck.

It is worth dwelling on a few of these presences, because a list of names says little to anyone who doesn't go birdwatching. The black-winged stilt is a black and white wader with very long red legs, out of proportion to its body, that walks in the shallow water with an elegance that looks rehearsed. It is perhaps the most photographed bird of these pans after the flamingo. The pied avocet, another black and white wader, is recognized by its thin bill curved upward, which it moves sideways in the water like a scythe to catch small invertebrates. The shelduck is a large duck, white with a dark green head and a chestnut band across the chest, typically tied to brackish coastal environments and anything but common on the rest of the coast.

Besides the nesting species, the reserve hosts a flow of presences tied to migration and wintering. Among the ardeids you can see the great egret, the gray heron and the purple heron. The great cormorant appears. Among the waterfowl, the teal, gadwall, pintail, wigeon, shoveler and pochard are documented, that is, a large part of the dabbling and diving ducks that winter in Italian wetlands. Among the raptors are the marsh harrier, the osprey, the peregrine falcon, the short-eared owl, the red kite and the black kite: a presence of predators that by itself signals the richness of the food base, because raptors stop where there is something to eat.

The larids are represented by the Sandwich tern, the yellow-legged gull, Audouin's gull, the black-headed gull, the slender-billed gull and the Mediterranean gull. The waders, that is, the small and medium wading birds that probe the mud with their bills, include the curlew, the ringed plover, the redshank, the dunlin, the golden plover and the grey plover. It is precisely this group that makes the pans unmissable during the migration passages: waders need very shallow water and exposed muddy bottoms, conditions that the pans of a salt works reproduce better than any other coastal environment.

The flamingo deserves the paragraph everyone is waiting for. The species named in the sources on the reserve is the greater flamingo, present in the pans in numbers that vary from season to season. Its expansion in the western Mediterranean in recent decades has led these birds to frequent regularly wetlands where they once appeared only rarely, and disused salt pans are among their favorite environments precisely for the combination of shallow water, high salinity and abundance of crustaceans. Seeing a group of flamingos against the light over a pan on the Lazio coast is an experience few associate with Lazio and that here is nonetheless possible.

For fish species the recorded list includes the already mentioned nono, Aphanius fasciatus, the flathead mullet, Mugil cephalus, and the thicklip grey mullet, Chelon labrosus. Older descriptions of the site also cited the eel among the presences in the pans: the information appears in the local descriptive tradition, while the most recent reference wildlife list does not include it, so it is best treated as a reported presence and not as a recorded fact. The interesting point remains the small number of fish species in any case: the high salinity works as a very harsh filter, and very few fish get past it.

The recorded amphibians include the southern smooth newt, Lissotriton vulgaris meridionalis, the Italian crested newt, Triturus carnifex, the common toad, Bufo bufo, the Italian green toad, Bufotes balearicus, the Italian pool frog, Pelophylax hispanicus, and the Italian tree frog, Hyla intermedia. Their presence depends on the lower salinity portions, because the permeable skin of amphibians does not tolerate waters that are too salty.

Among the reptiles the list is richer than you would expect in such a specialized environment: western whip snake, four-lined snake, common wall gecko, Moorish gecko, Italian wall lizard, three-toed skink, grass snake, dice snake, western green lizard, Aesculapian snake, Hermann's tortoise, European pond turtle and common viper. Two presences of conservation importance are worth pointing out: Hermann's tortoise, a land species, and the European pond turtle, tied to fresh and brackish waters, both species in decline across much of the Italian range. The four-lined snake, the largest snake in Europe among the non-venomous ones, is harmless and calm by nature.

The recorded mammals include Savi's pine vole, the European water vole, the lesser white-toothed shrew, the greater white-toothed shrew, the weasel, the beech marten, the porcupine, the Italian hare, the European free-tailed bat, the Etruscan shrew, Kuhl's pipistrelle, Savi's pipistrelle, the brown rat, the European hedgehog, the red squirrel, the Roman mole, the badger, the house mouse, the wood mouse, the Apennine shrew, the long-fingered bat, Natterer's bat and the fox. Two names deserve a mention: the Etruscan shrew is the smallest mammal in the world by body mass, an insectivore weighing less than two grams. The Italian hare is a species endemic to central-southern Italy and Sicily, distinct from the European hare and of high conservation interest.

One Thing Nobody Tells You About the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

What almost no tourist description tells is about the hands that dug these pans. The labor used to build the salt works, in the first phase of the work, came largely from the Porto Clementino prison. The building in question had been born for another purpose: under the pontificate of Benedict XIV the warehouse intended for storing grain was converted into a prison, and from that structure came much of the workforce that opened the basins, shaped the embankments and put the salt production cycle into operation. When you walk along the edge of this wetland and look at the regularity of the rectangles of water, it is worth remembering that this geometry was produced under conditions that today we would call forced labor.

The second part of the story is less grim and also less known. Starting in 1876 prison labor was replaced by civilian workers, and next to the pans a small settlement was built to house them. These were not temporary shacks: the settlement, once completed, had a school, a building for the after-work club, a water tank, a church and a barracks for the customs guards. So on the Tarquinia coast there existed for decades a real salt village, with its social structure, its children going to school there, its place of worship and its fiscal garrison, because salt was a monopoly good and had to be guarded.

There is also a very long-term element that rarely appears in descriptions. Salt extraction in this area does not begin in 1802: the managing body's sources indicate that the activity must already have taken place in the Villanovan era and would have continued under the Etruscans and the Romans. We are not talking about the same plants, obviously, but about the same vocation of the place, exploited with different techniques for almost three millennia. The low coast, the lagoon, the strong sun and the constant wind make this stretch of shoreline a place where salt is obtained with little digging work and a lot of patient work. The Etruscans of Tarquinia, who had in the nearby landing place of Gravisca their commercial outlet on the Tyrrhenian Sea, had at their disposal a resource worth as much as metal.

My Advice for Visiting the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

Advice number one concerns organization, and it is worth more than any other practical indication: anyone who wants to enter the reserve must act ahead, contacting the Carabinieri Biodiversity Unit of Rome and making a visit request. Openings are oriented to organized groups and school classes, evaluation is case by case and compatibility with protection needs comes before everything else. Showing up on site hoping for an improvised entry means wasting the day. Anyone planning a school trip or a group outing should make the request well in advance, stating the number of participants, the date and the purpose.

Advice number two concerns equipment, and it concerns those who stay outside too. Without binoculars this trip loses much of its meaning. Binoculars with a magnification of around 8 or 10 times and objective lenses of 40 or 50 millimeters, that is, the classic 8x42 or 10x50, completely change the perception of the place: what to the naked eye looks like a white spot on flat water becomes a little egret hunting, and the pink line in the distance becomes a group of flamingos with their legs in the water. Anyone who owns a spotting scope with a tripod has a further advantage at long distances. For photography you need long focal lengths, from 300 millimeters up: with a standard lens you take home landscapes, not birds.

Advice number three concerns timing. The first hours of the morning and the last of the afternoon are when bird activity peaks, the light is low and warm, and the glare on the water eases. At noon in summer the overhead sun flattens the colors, the air shimmers with heat and observation at a distance becomes difficult because of the shimmer. Anyone with only one chance should choose early morning: the light comes from the east, so behind the back of someone looking at the pans from the sea side, and this helps both the eye and the camera.

Advice number four concerns clothing and protection. In summer the Tarquinia shoreline is exposed and without shade: a hat, sunglasses with good protection and sunscreen are not optional accessories. In the evening hours and in the wet seasons mosquitoes are plentiful, as in any coastal wetland, and a repellent keeps the observation from turning into torture. Closed shoes, always: the brackish ground alternates dry crust and mud, and in the low vegetation zones the presence of reptiles, common viper included, advises against walking through the grass in flip-flops.

Advice number five concerns behavior, and it is worth being explicit. No drones: flying a remotely piloted aircraft over a protected area is subject to specific regulations and, regulations aside, a drone over a wetland makes the birds take flight en masse, which amounts to an enormous energy expenditure for animals that may have just crossed the Mediterranean. No audio calls to attract species. No approaching the water's edge where the Kentish plover nests in the breeding season. Dogs on a leash, always, even on the outer shoreline. Low voices. These are common-sense rules that multiply the chances of seeing something, as well as reducing disturbance.

The Flora of the Pans, the Embankments and the Dune

The vegetation of this site is spread along the embankments, inside the pans, in the coastal ponds and on the dunes, and includes several rare or threatened species typical of high-salinity environments. The organizing principle is simple: the closer you get to salt water, the more specialized the plants must be, down to the succulent halophytes, which store water in their fleshy tissues to dilute the salt they inevitably absorb.

Among the recorded halophytes are the glaucous glasswort, Arthrocnemum macrostachyum, and the two species of Sarcocornia listed in the site's lists, together with Suaeda fruticosa and Suaeda vera. These are plants of unshowy appearance, with fleshy, jointed stems, that in autumn turn toward red and bronze and give the edges of the pans one of the most memorable color images of the place. To these are added the slenderleaf iceplant, Mesembryanthemum nodiflorum, which owes its name to the translucent vesicles covering its surface, and the annual frankenia, Frankenia pulverulenta subspecies pulverulenta.

On the dune the sequence is the classic one of the Tyrrhenian coast: the sea rocket, Cakile maritima, which colonizes the sand closest to the water's edge. The sand couch-grass, Elymus farctus, which begins to fix the substrate with its rhizomes. The spiny dune grass, Ammophila arenaria, which builds the dune proper. The sea bindweed, Calystegia soldanella, with its pink funnel-shaped flowers. The capitate flatsedge, Cyperus capitatus. In the midst of these appears the sea daffodil, Pancratium maritimum, which at the end of summer opens large, highly fragrant white flowers and is perhaps the most photographed plant of all Italian dunes.

In the waters of the pans live the algae already mentioned, Cladophora vagabonda and Dunaliella salina, the one responsible for the pinkish color. In the drier and more disturbed environments are found the prickly saltwort, Salsola tragus, and the rough cornflower, Centaurea aspera subspecies aspera. Among the tree and shrub species the lists report the stone pine, Pinus pinea, and the Aleppo pine, Pinus halepensis, the white poplar, Populus alba, the Russian olive, Elaeagnus angustifolia, the myrtle and the tamarisks, Tamarix gallica and Tamarix africana. The tamarisk is the symbol plant of these environments: it tolerates salt, wind and drought, and its light crowns form the only shaded zones of the wetland.

A problematic presence should also be noted: the tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima, an invasive alien species native to East Asia, able to quickly colonize disturbed soils and displace native vegetation. Its appearance in the floristic lists of a protected area is not good news, and it is one of the fronts on which the management of any Italian coastal reserve works continuously. Anyone walking along the edge who recognizes the compound leaves and the unpleasant smell of broken twigs understands at a glance what it is.

Another Well-Known Fact, Yet Rarely Mentioned

The fact is this: the Tarquinia salt works was born as a replacement for another salt works. The Ostia salt pans, which for centuries had supplied Rome, had gradually moved away from the coastline because of the advance of the Tiber delta, losing efficiency and in the end functionality. The Papal State therefore had to find an alternative site, and the choice fell on this stretch of coast about six miles from Corneto, the name Tarquinia carried until 1872 and then, in the form Corneto Tarquinia, until 1922.

The two criteria that determined the choice are documented and are disarmingly concrete: on one side the characteristics of the terrain, flat and brackish, therefore suited to hosting evaporation basins without earthmoving works. On the other the proximity to Porto Clementino, which already had a building for storing grain, that is, a reusable logistics structure and a landing place for shipping the product. No landscape considerations, no naturalistic vocation: pure industrial and logistical convenience.

The name that appears at the origin of the enterprise is that of the engineer Giuseppe Lipari, who on commission from Pope Pius VII obtained the concession to build the salt works. Production was meant to meet the needs of Rome and of the papal provinces facing the Tyrrhenian side of the Apennines. This is 1802, that is, a phase of institutional rebuilding of the Papal State after the parenthesis of the Roman Republic, with a pontiff who needed to set in order the finances and the strategic supplies of the capital.

The second rarely cited fact concerns instead the end of the 20th century, and is administrative in nature. The reserve was entrusted in 1980 to the State Forestry Corps, which managed it for more than 35 years. With the absorption of the Forestry Corps into the Carabinieri, management of the state nature reserves passed to the Carabinieri Biodiversity Grouping, a branch of the Forestry, Environmental and Agri-food Units Command. This transition explains why many older sources still speak of the Forestry Corps and why current sources cite the Carabinieri: it is the same public function carried out by a different structure, not a change in the area's designation.

The third fact concerns 1987 and water. A flood damaged the structures of the basins and canals, compromising the hydraulic system that regulates the levels and circulation of water among the pans. Recovery came many years later, with the Life 02 NAT/IT/8523 project carried out between 2002 and 2007, dedicated precisely to the ecological restoration of the area. Anyone who looks today at the full, orderly pans sees the result of that work, not a spontaneous state of affairs.

The Right Photo to Take at the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

The photograph that really tells this place is not the close-up of the flamingo, which requires heavy equipment and luck, but the landscape against the light at dawn or sunset, with the motionless expanse of water reflecting the sky and the black silhouettes of the birds crossing it. The very shallow surface of the pans works as an almost perfect mirror when the wind drops, and the wind drops above all in the first hours of the morning. The result is an image built on two horizontal bands of sky, one real and one reflected, separated by the thin line of the embankment.

The second photo worth looking for is the one of the color. When salinity and light work together, the pink produced by the microalga makes the pans the protagonists without the need for any animal subject. You need high light and a clear sky to bring it out, so it works better in mid-morning than at sunset, and it is the case where a polarizing filter helps a lot, because it removes the surface reflection and lets the color of the water emerge.

The third photo is the one of the dune, and it has to be built the opposite way from how most people build it. Instead of climbing onto the sand ridge, which should be avoided, you get low on the water's edge and use the sea daffodil or a tuft of spiny dune grass as the foreground, with the pans and the line of tamarisks in the background. A short focal length, close focus and a closed aperture capture in one image the two environments that touch here: sea and wetland a few tens of meters apart.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

The first chapter is prehistoric and protohistoric: salt extraction on this stretch of coast must already have taken place in the Villanovan era, that is, in the early Iron Age, and would have continued under the Etruscans and then under the Romans. Salt was one of the goods that made Tarquinia rich, and its maritime outlet had a precise name: Gravisca, the port of the Etruscan city, active from the end of the seventh century BC and home to one of the best-known emporic sanctuaries of the archaic Mediterranean, frequented by Greek merchants of Phocaean origin.

In 181 BC, after the Roman conquest of the Tarquinia territory, a maritime colony of Roman citizens was founded at Gravisca, which lasted until late antiquity. The site occupies a stretch of low coast where the salt pans are still visible today: in antiquity a lagoon opened there that offered boats a sheltered natural landing place. In modern times the landing place was reborn about 300 meters further northwest, with Porto Clementino, the port that would later supply together the warehouse, the prison and the logistics of the 19th-century salt works.

1802 marks the start of work on the modern salt works, under a concession obtained by the engineer Giuseppe Lipari on commission from Pope Pius VII. The work dragged on for decades. The conversion of the Porto Clementino warehouse into a prison, which happened under Benedict XIV, provided the labor for the first phase. From 1876 the work passed to civilian workers, with the construction of the village equipped with a school, after-work club, water tank, church and customs guards' barracks.

On January 25, 1980, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests issued the decree establishing the animal population nature reserve, because of the site's importance for birdlife under the Ramsar convention, entrusting its management to the State Forestry Corps. In 1987 a flood damages basins and canals. In 1995 comes recognition as a site of community importance. In 1997 salt extraction stops for good. Between 2002 and 2007 the Life 02 NAT/IT/8523 project funds the area's ecological recovery. In 2017 the site also becomes a special protection zone, and in the same period management passes to the Carabinieri Biodiversity Grouping.

Who Has Passed Through the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

The most famous passage concerns cinema, and surprises anyone who discovers it. Some exterior scenes of the enchanted little house of the Fairy with Turquoise Hair, in the television serial The Adventures of Pinocchio directed by Luigi Comencini in 1972, were shot on the sea pans of the Tarquinia Salt Pans beach: specifically the scene in which the schoolmates are invited. The wooden footbridge and the little house were built expressly for the filming and no longer exist today. Other scenes of the same serial were shot at Lake Martignano. Anyone who has those images in mind, with Gina Lollobrigida in the role of the Fairy, looks at these pans with different eyes.

On the historical side the names that matter are those already met. Pope Pius VII, the pontiff who faced the confrontation with Napoleon, authorized the salt works enterprise in 1802. The engineer Giuseppe Lipari was its concessionaire and builder. Pope Benedict XIV, much earlier, had ordered the conversion of the Porto Clementino warehouse into a prison, a decision that would determine the origin of the labor of the first decades. These are documented passages that tie a strip of Maremma coast to the decisions of the Roman curia.

A little further south, on the same coast, Italian archaeology of the 20th century passed through: the excavations at Gravisca, carried out between 1969 and 1979 and then between 1994 and 2007 under the direction of Mario Torelli, have yielded one of the most studied emporic sanctuaries of the archaic Mediterranean and have changed the way we think about relations between Greeks and Etruscans. Anyone interested in that season will find in the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome the broader context in which to place the materials of the Tarquinia coast.

When to Go to the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis and When to Avoid It

The best periods coincide with the migration passages: from late February to mid-May for the spring migration, from August to November for the autumn one. In these windows the number of observable species peaks, because stopover migrants add to the stable presences, and the waders that use the exposed shallow bottoms appear in large groups. Anyone who can choose only one month should aim for April or September.

Winter has its value and is underrated. From December to February the pans host the wintering birds, ducks and ardeids above all, the light is low and slanting all day, the shoreline is deserted and the weather conditions give the best atmospheres. The cold is felt because of the wind, so you need suitable clothing, but from the observation point of view it is an excellent season.

The period to avoid, for those who come for nature, is the heart of summer. Between mid-July and the end of August the heat is full, bird activity shrinks to the first and last hours of the day, the shimmering air makes observation at a distance difficult and the whole coastal strip is crowded with people who come for the sea. Anyone here in that period should limit themselves to dawn: after nine in the morning the experience changes for the worse.

An important seasonal warning concerns nesting. Between April and July the Kentish plover lays on the sand and the species that nest in the pans are in the most delicate phase of the cycle. It is the period when disturbance does the greatest damage and when entry authorizations are, for obvious reasons, harder to obtain. Anyone planning a group visit should take this biological calendar into account before choosing the date.

What Is Around the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

A few minutes away is the historic center of Tarquinia, perched on the plateau, with its medieval fabric, towers and the Etruscan heritage that since 2004 has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage thanks to the great Monterozzi necropolis, where more than 6,000 tombs have been recorded and where about 400 painted tombs from the archaic period to the Hellenistic age are preserved. On the coast, immediately to the south, is the locality of Bagni di Sant'Agostino, with its thermal waters facing the sea.

To the north the Maremma opens up with Montalto di Castro and with the archaeological area of Vulci, another great Etruscan city with its park and the bridge over the Fiora. Continuing, you reach the lagoon and the oases of the southern Tuscan coast, from Lake Burano to the Orbetello lagoon oasis, as far as Capalbio and Orbetello: anyone who wants to build a wetland itinerary on the Tyrrhenian has here the densest sequence in Italy.

To the south the Etruscan coast continues with Civitavecchia and its port, with the Frasca di Civitavecchia, with Santa Marinella and with the Macchiatonda Nature Reserve, another coastal wetland that shares function and problems with the Salt Pans. Further down you reach Cerveteri and the Banditaccia Necropolis, the Etruscan necropolis of ancient Caere, and then Ladispoli and the oases of the Roman coast such as Macchiagrande and the Castel di Guido Oasis.

In the immediate hinterland the Tolfa Mountains open up, with Tolfa, Allumiere and the Allumiere Beech Forest, and a little beyond the Monterano Reserve with the famous ghost village of Monterano in the territory of Canale Monterano. Going up toward the Tuscia you meet Tuscania with its nature reserve, the Marturanum Park, Lake Vico with its reserve, Lake Bolsena with Marta, the town that gives its name to the river that flows down precisely toward the Tarquinia coast, and finally Viterbo.

Quick Questions About the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

Can I enter the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis freely?

No. It is a state nature reserve with regulated access: visits take place with prior authorization from the managing body, consistent with the aims of protecting species and habitats.

Who manages the reserve?

The Carabinieri Biodiversity Grouping of the Forestry, Environmental and Agri-food Units Command of the Carabinieri, and in particular the Carabinieri Biodiversity Unit of Rome. Until its absorption into the Carabinieri, management was in the hands of the State Forestry Corps.

How big is it?

About 170 hectares, spread along the Tarquinia coast in the province of Viterbo.

What is the founding act?

A decree of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests of January 25, 1980, which establishes it as an animal population nature reserve. The code in the official list of protected areas is EUAP0085.

Is the salt works still in operation?

No. Salt extraction declined gradually until it stopped for good in 1997. The pans remain in operation as a managed wetland environment, not as a production plant.

When were the salt pans built?

Work began in 1802 and dragged on for decades. The plant was born to replace the Ostia salt pans in supplying salt to Rome and the papal provinces on the Tyrrhenian side.

What European recognitions does the site have?

Site of community importance since 1995 and special protection zone since 2017, within the Natura 2000 network. It hosts seven habitats protected by the Habitats Directive.

How many bird species have been recorded?

About 220, migratory and resident, on a surface of less than two square kilometers.

Are there really flamingos?

Yes, the flamingo is among the reserve's species. The presence varies from season to season and is not guaranteed on a specific date.

Why is the water sometimes pinkish?

Because of the microalga Dunaliella salina, which in conditions of high salinity and intense light produces orange-red carotenoid pigments.

Can I go to the beach in front of the reserve?

The sea shore is public state property and the shoreline remains accessible. What is not freely accessible is the interior of the protected perimeter, that is, pans, embankments and canals.

What are the hours and the ticket price?

The managing body's sources show no published public opening hours or entrance fees: the regime is that of prior authorization, not that of a ticket office.

How do I get there by car?

A12 motorway with exit at Tarquinia, or State Road 1 Via Aurelia, then down toward the sea along Provincial Road 44 in the direction of Porto Clementino.

Do I need binoculars?

Yes, and they are the item that makes the difference between an ordinary walk and a day of observation. An 8x42 or a 10x50 is more than enough.

Can I use drones?

No. Besides the specific regulations on flying in a protected area, overflight makes the birds take flight en masse and causes serious energy expenditure for migrating animals.

What is the best period?

The passage seasons, so from late February to mid-May and from August to November. Winter is excellent for the wintering birds. The heart of summer is the least favorable period.

Are there fish in the pans?

Few and specialized: the nono, Aphanius fasciatus, the flathead mullet and the thicklip grey mullet. The high salinity works as a very severe filter.

What was the Porto Clementino prison?

A grain warehouse converted into a prison under Benedict XIV, from which came much of the labor used in the first phase of work on the salt works.

Is it true that Pinocchio was filmed there?

Yes. The exteriors of the Fairy with Turquoise Hair's little house in Luigi Comencini's 1972 serial were shot partly on the sea pans of the Tarquinia Salt Pans beach, partly at Lake Martignano. The structures built for the filming no longer exist.

What is the difference from a WWF oasis?

An oasis run by an association is also designed for public use, with trails, hides and visits on a calendar. A state animal population nature reserve has protection as its priority aim, and access is granted only when it is compatible with that aim.

In our judgment the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis is one of the most interesting and worst understood places in Lazio. Interesting because in 170 hectares it concentrates a density of life that elsewhere takes a national park. Poorly understood because people arrive with the idea of a park open to visitors and find instead a strict, closed reserve that does nothing to please. It is worth accepting its terms: binoculars, a dawn, a bit of patience, and the awareness that those rectangles of water are the last thing left of a wetland landscape that on the Tyrrhenian has almost vanished.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis

Can I enter the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis freely?

No, the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis is a state nature reserve with regulated access: visits take place with prior authorization from the managing body, consistent with the protection needs of species and habitats. Anyone who wants to enter must first contact the Carabinieri Biodiversity Unit of Rome.

Who manages the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis?

The Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis is managed by the Carabinieri Biodiversity Grouping of the Forestry, Environmental and Agri-food Units Command of the Carabinieri. Openings are oriented above all to organized groups and school classes, with a case-by-case evaluation of the visit request.

What is the best time to see birds at the Tarquinia Salt Pans?

The best periods for the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis coincide with the migration passages: from late February to mid-May for the spring migration, from August to November for the autumn one. In these windows the number of observable species peaks, with stopover migrants adding to the stable presences.

Why do some pans at the Tarquinia Salt Pans turn pink?

On the right days some pans of the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis take on shades from pale pink to reddish thanks to a living organism, the microalga Dunaliella salina, able to thrive in waters with high salt concentrations. The color has nothing to do with the light of sunset.

Can I walk on the beach in front of the Tarquinia Salt Pans?

Yes, the sea shore in front of the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis is public state property, so walking on the water's edge, looking at the sea or sunbathing on the sand of the Tarquinia coast are free activities. Access to the reserve's interior pans is different, and remains regulated.

How many bird species are there at the Tarquinia Salt Pans?

The census of the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis counts about 220 species of birds, migratory and resident, with a list of nesting species that comfortably exceeds 40 entries, including the cattle egret, the pied avocet, the black-winged stilt and the short-toed lark.

Why was the Tarquinia salt works built?

The Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis was born as a replacement for another salt works: the Ostia salt pans, which for centuries had supplied Rome, had gradually moved away from the coastline because of the advance of the Tiber delta, losing efficiency. The Papal State therefore had to find an alternative site on this stretch of coast.

What is near the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis?

A few minutes from the Tarquinia Salt Pans Nature Oasis is the historic center of Tarquinia, perched on the plateau, with the Etruscan heritage that since 2004 has been on the UNESCO list thanks to the Monterozzi necropolis, where more than 6,000 tombs have been recorded and about 400 painted tombs.

Article written by the TourLeaderPro editorial team, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences. For a day organized on the Etruscan coast among Tarquinia, Vulci and the Tolfa Mountains, with a licensed tourist escort, start from the TourLeaderPro contact page. Tour operators who build nature and archaeological itineraries in northern Lazio will find the consulting service in the section dedicated to tour operators.

Planning a trip to Italy? The English guides to visiting Rome and Lazio are on ItalyPlanner.com. For anyone thinking in terms of days out of the city, there is the guide to the best day trips from Rome.