Galliera, where the waters of the Reno, the Emiliano-Romagnolo canal and the Napoleonic Tunnel meet, is immersed in gentle countryside and surrounded by embankments. Its territory is made up of three towns which together make up a single Council: Galliera Località Antica, San Venanzio and San Vincenzo.
In San Venanzio, in front of the church, stands Palazzo Bonora, with its telamons supporting a balcony. Now house to the municipal headquarters, the building was originally the residence of the Bonora family, agrarian merchants who for decades successfully managed the patrimonial estate of the “Duchy of Galliera”, here estabilished by Napoleon in 1813.
Between Galliera, Pieve di Cento and S. Agostino (Province of Ferrara) there is a great natural monument of notable environmental interest: the Bisana natural area and Panfilia flood-plain woods, an example of humid-riparian bank forest, once widespread across these lowlands. The natural area consists of a plain wood, the Panfilia wood, and a floodplain area created by the accumulation of debris transported by the Reno river. It is possible to visit it through a path that allows the visitors to see all the habitats without disturbing the fauna, mainly composed of birds and small mammals such as foxes, hedgehogs and dormice. In the summertime it is possible to take part in guided excursions to admire the firefly show.
Every year, in the first week of August, Galliera celebrates the Fiera d'Agosto (August Fair), an event that has been enlivening the hamlet of San Venanzio with food, shows and music for more than 150 years.
In the countryside north of the town stands the medieval tower of Galliera which, together with the nearby towers of Cocenno and Uccellino, testifies to an ancient system of fortifications that the Municipality of Bologna built at the end of the 12th century at the most advanced point of its border with Ferrara territory.
