Our secret wilderness preserve is a hit with our American visitors

Lucy and I have a policy with friends who come to visit from the states: If they want to see Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Cinque Terre, Viareggio or other nearby attractions, we’ll take them to and from the train station and they are welcome to go on their own. We’ve seen these places—all beautiful and worthwhile destinations—often enough that we have no particular desire to go again as tourists. But if our guests want to go with us to one of our favorite local hangouts, we’re all in. This week, one of those locations that friends Dave and Wendy desired to see was the Lago di Sibolla, which is only about 10 minutes away but seems to be part of another world. Dave is a retired teacher of biology and other natural sciences, and Wendy is an avid hiker, so they chose this hidden gem in favor of the usual tourist destinations (Lucy chose to rest at home this time).

The lake—centuries ago much larger but now more a series of swamps—is a wilderness preserve rarely frequented even by locals. Lucy and I have been there probably a dozen times and have only seen another person once or twice. The main entrances are blocked off. I think they are only opened a few times a year for guided tours. However, seven years ago, I discovered a secret side entrance while exploring a dead end road on my bike and looking for a shortcut between Altopascio and San Salvatore.

Dave and I in search of a trail.

The preserve has at least a half dozen aging interpretive signs written in both Italian and English, so it seems that at one time it was designed to be open to the public on a regular basis. Perhaps because of budget cuts or general lack of interest, the preserve has been ignored and mostly forgotten. Every time I go there, the trails become more overgrown, the ponds and signs more hidden, the ducks, egrets and herons more difficult to see because of the underbrush. I intended to take Dave and Wendy on a loop trail that I had last accessed two years prior, but we couldn’t fight our way through the blackberry bushes that had grown up about halfway through the loop. We got close enough to hear the ducks quacking, but not enough to see them.

Evidence of cinghiali,
with a 50 centesimi piece
for perspective.

We did see many signs of cinghiali (wild pigs) and more droppings that I believe to be of lupi (wolves) and conigli (rabbits), but the only things alive we saw were slugs, snails, a lizard and lots of bugs in the air and on the ground. But then we started again on the loop trail but from the other side. I had almost missed this on the way in because the beginning was so overgrown, but I recognized it on the second pass, and lucky thing, because after we followed it for 10 minutes, we found some muddy ponds teaming with water bugs. Further on, we hit the jackpot, a large lake that even Lucy and I had never seen in previous years because the trail to it is under water during the spring and fall. Now we saw the ducks, egrets and herons—though the majority of them were in flight on their way to other hidden ponds in the preserve. We could also see numerous fish jumping, something new for me.

All in all, we spent about two hours hiking, taking photos and just admiring the quiet, scenic surroundings. It’s a marvel that this wilderness exists less than a mile from the bustling city of Altopascio and is known to few people but instead is home to many wild animals—even if they know enough to keep well away from the occasional human intruder. I’m sure they have no complaint that the preserve is almost forgotten by humankind.

This dead tree that still hasn't shed all its
cones is now a home for geckos, who live
in its crevices.

These plant clusters become floating islands during times of high water.

Herons seen only from a distance.