Sea and salt trades: Cesenatico and Cervia

The Museo della Marineria and the lugsails 45 min

In the oldest stretch of the port canal, the one designed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1502, Adriatic working boats float at anchor: bragozzi, trabaccoli, lance. They were built by master shipwrights and made watertight by caulkers with oakum and pitch; the sails were painted red and yellow with coloured earth pigments and bore the family symbol, so from shore you could recognise who was coming home. The indoor section tells the story of fishing, the shipyards and sailors' lives.

The sails are hoisted from Easter to autumn; the indoor section has seasonal opening times.

The ice stores 15 min

Before refrigerators, fish was kept fresh with ice collected in winter and stored in large covered wells dug underground, the 'conserve'. This too was a trade: cutting, carrying and packing the ice so it would last until summer. In Piazza delle Conserve one has been reconstructed and you can see what it was like inside.

MUSA, the Salt Museum 30 min

In the great Magazzino Torre of 1691, salt was piled up before being loaded onto boats: thousands of tonnes. Today it houses MUSA, which tells the story of the salt workers' labour with wooden tools, photographs and the words of those who did it: the families who each worked their own section of saltpan, the summer harvest, the salt carried on shoulders and in boats to the warehouses.

Seasonal opening times: check before visiting.

The Salina Camillone 60 min

Before 1959 the Cervia saltpan was divided into about 150 small family-run saltpans; then it was merged into a single large facility and the families' work ended. The Camillone is the only one that remains as it was: volunteers from the Civiltà Salinara, many of them former salt workers, harvest the salt by hand with wooden tools, using the method known as 'alla cervese'. The result is 'sale dolce', low in bitter salts, now a Slow Food Presidium. Around it lie the saltpan basins, with pink flamingos.

Free guided visits in summer (usually mid-June to mid-September, afternoons, on set days); on Tuesdays you can work alongside the salt workers by booking: check the MUSA calendar.