We find a new and much better entrance to the Lago di Sibolla

The main entrance,
closed as usual.

In the last two days, we’ve gone on three bike rides, once to church, once to the cinema in Altopascio (to watch A Haunting in Venice) and once to the Lago (Lake) di Sibolla Riserva Naturale. The weather in Tuscany is just about perfect in September. The days are in the low to mid 80s, and the nights in the mid 60s (around 18-28 degrees Celsius).

The Lago di Sibolla is more of a park for wild animals than a park for people to go for picnics or play. It’s not that people are forbidden to enter, but the main entrance is locked about 99 percent of the time. About 10 years ago, using Google maps, I noticed a sort of secret entrance to the lake property. Lucy and I would use this little-known side entrance every so often to walk on poorly maintained trails over some scrubby land east of the lake, and last year we took our friends Wendy and Dave for a walk to this special wilderness preserve. However, we could barely see the lake because of the heavy undergrowth and marshes that surround it. The water in the shallow marshes wasn’t deep enough to sustain much visible wildlife, so there wasn’t much to see other than the occasional rabbit. We did see a lot of herons and egrets fly by to land on or near the lake, but it was always from a distance.

Well, that changed on Saturday, as I discovered another unmarked entrance, one that is 10 times better than the first one, on a road branching off from Via Ponti ai Pini. This one led to a wooded trail that winds about one kilometer from the east side of the lake along the southern end and comes out on the west side—leading to a footbridge through the marshlands that ends on a small platform right on the edge of the lake. Even better, the platform has a viewing shack with peepholes in it, so one can observe the birds on the lake without them being aware of or frightened by our presence.

One of many turtles we saw.

Lucy and I enjoyed the viewing area for about 20 minutes, watching herons fly by and a dozen or so turtles swimming around with just their heads peeking out of the water. We saw many fish jumping and also found a large white spider who had made his home in the shack. This will be a great place to come next spring, when the herons and egrets return to their nests for the mating season. We had heard the great racket they make during the spring previously, but we couldn’t really get close enough to see them clearly.

The trail also led to the main entrance on the far west side of the preserve, which, as usual, was locked. Near the entrance is a good-sized building which is probably used for nature talks on the rare occasions when the preserve is open. Unfortunately, there are no picnic tables, but there is a large flat area among the trees, covered with pine needles. We sat down, opened our backpacks and enjoyed the snacks we had brought. We had the place all to ourselves, though at one point a car pulled up to the locked gate and watched us briefly through the chain link fence—probably wondering how we were able to get inside.

See the heron?

Even though it was a Saturday, we saw only two other families during our time on the trails, so we know that few of the locals are aware of the unmarked entrance we had discovered. We look forward to returning here for further communion with nature. Our only regret is that we didn’t bring insect repellent, because there are a few tiny buzzing species of lake wildlife that we don’t appreciate.