In autumn, the lands of Romagna offer great gifts. While the sea and the beaches offer the landscapes and emotions of solitude and sentiments with Fellini-esque shades, the plains, the hills, and the mountains of Romagna are filled with colours, flavours and scents that are difficult to imagine.
Ancient cities and villages live perhaps their most lively, engaging and welcoming moment: a profound and heartfelt identity made up of history, art, and culture expresses the best of itself in the festivals and squares, within the walls of castles, museums, churches and thousand-year-old abbeys.
It is in autumn that the cultivated farmlands, like the wildest hills of Romagna, set the richest table. It is the triumph of the land, of the work that makes it beautiful, of the knowledge that makes it good, rich in delicacies. It is the magical moment of the vineyards and the great wines of Romagna, but also of splendid landscapes that are coloured with the magical colours of autumn with a palette of great variety.
Our journey starts from Bagno di Romagna, a place of well-being for all seasons, where spas, nature, culture and gastronomy intertwine to make every moment of the year pleasant. When autumn approaches, however, the forest becomes the protagonist: truffles and mushrooms enrich local recipes, transforming themselves into signature dishes in the town’s starred restaurants, or into rich dishes of the rural tradition in the farmhouses that dot the valley of Pietrapazza and the slopes of Mount Còmero.
But Bagno di Romagna is above all a gateway to the Casentinesi Forests Monte Falterona and Campigna National Park, which covers an area of about 36,000 hectares. The Lama Forest and the Sasso Fratino integral reserve in the heart of the Forest are the protected natural pearls of the Park, with the latter and its ancient beech forests becoming part of the UNESCO World Heritage List: robust and ancient trees that represent a source of pride for Romagna, an unspoiled nature that finds in the autumn foliage a scenario of extreme beauty.
We then move about thirty kilometres towards Ridracoli, famous for the imposing dam (1975-1982) that led the Bidente river to form a lake that goes about 5 km into the heart of the mountain. The autumn season enhances all the colours of this wonderful body of water and it is possible to enjoy the beauty of these places both by bicycle and on foot, perhaps starting from the Idro Ecomuseo of Ridracoli, and arriving at the Ca’ di Sopra refuge.
A very fascinating route, along which you can encounter panoramic views of the landscape of the Casentinesi Forests National Park and the animals that inhabit it, such as fallow deer, roe deer, bucks, owls, up to the breathtaking view of the lake and the dam.
The third stop of our itinerary takes us to discover the area of Brisighella, a beautiful village located in the lower Lamone valley on the slopes of the Tuscan-Romagna Apennines. The town is located at the foot of three gypsum pinnacles upon which rest the Rocca Manfrediana, the Clock Tower and the Sanctuary of Monticino. Nestled in the gypsum rock formations of Brisighella, a few kilometres from the town, the Visitor Centre of Cà Carnè and the Tanaccia Cave represent some of the most beautiful environments of the Vena del Gesso Romagna Regional Park.
The outcrop, the longest and most imposing gypsum relief in Italy, extends for 25 km and the area is characterised by the presence of peculiar karst morphologies, including sinkholes, blind valleys and numerous caves, among which many “abysses” stand out. And it is precisely these outcroppings that have recently officially become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, due to their unique and original characteristics.
In the direction of Venice we enter the heart of the protected area of the Po Delta Regional Park, a UNESCO MAB Reserve and a unique environment for its extraordinary biodiversity. The capital of the Park is the town of Comacchio, a lagoon city that was founded and lives between land and water, capable of enchanting with its particular natural beauty and historical landmarks.
Five kilometres from its historic centre, the evocative landscape of its valleys opens up, the remains of a complex of about 11,000 hectares of surface and an extraordinary area of biodiversity. Among its inhabitants, the splendid specimens of Pink Flamingos, a sedentary species in the area, stand out. Stazione Foce is the starting point for routes by bicycle, on foot or by motorboat, allowing one to enjoy from an unusual and evocative point of view the splendid colours that characterise these places in autumn.
