Circeo National Park site features

Circeo is five places under one name, strung along the coast between Anzio and Terracina.

Monte Circeo is the one you see first: a 541-metre limestone-dolomite massif that looks like an island stranded on a plain, and from a distance like a sleeping woman or a pig -- which is one explanation offered for the Circe legend attached to it. Its north and south faces are so different in climate that they carry different woods. At its foot open a remarkable set of caves: the Grotta Guattari, where a Neanderthal skull was found in 1939, the Grotta Breuil, also occupied by Neanderthals, the Grotta delle Capre, the Grotta dell'Impiso and the Grotta del Fossellone, and then the show caves -- the Grotta Azzurra for its colour, the Grotta del Presepe whose stalagmite flows look from the sea like kneeling figures, the Cinque Grotte or "Cathedral" named for spires like a Gothic church, the Grotta Barbara and the Grotta della Maga Circe, which legend says Circe pointed out to Odysseus as a berth for his boat.

The forest fills a roughly square block between the Pontina state road and the coast at San Felice Circeo. Three thousand three hundred hectares of it survive, the last of the Selva di Terracina and the largest plain forest in the country, threaded with footpaths and cycle tracks and punctuated by the autumn pools called piscine and the old clearings called lestre.

The dune runs about 22 km from the limestone cliff below the Torre Paola watchtower to Capo Portiere and on toward Capo d'Astura, fine sand backed by a ridge that reaches 27 metres. Wooden walkways cross it to the beach. Along the top runs a road lined, the source says bluntly, with an unbroken series of villas and fences that has disfigured the old natural beauty of the site.

The wetlands are the four lakes -- Paola, Caprolace, Monaci and Fogliano -- shallow brackish lagoons averaging about two metres deep, joined to the sea by canals that keep the water turning over. They are what is left of the Pontine Marshes. Around them lie further marshy ground and pastures where Italian Mediterranean buffalo are grazed semi-wild.

Zannone, annexed in 1979, is a small uninhabited island of the Pontine archipelago, wooded in oak and holm oak.

Six state nature reserves sit inside the park: Rovine di Circe, Piscina delle Bagnature, Piscina della Gattuccia, Pantani dell'Inferno, Lestra della Coscia and the Foresta demaniale del Circeo.

The park is five separate places, and the list below runs through them -- forest, promontory, dune, lakes and island.

• Monte Circeo -- a 541 m Mesozoic limestone-dolomite massif shaped like a stranded island, which gives the park its name.
• The Selva di Terracina remnant -- about 3,300 hectares, the largest plain forest in Italy.
• Grotta Guattari -- the cave where a Neanderthal skull was found in 1939; Grotta Breuil was also occupied by Neanderthals.
• Riparo Blanc -- where the oldest necropolis in Lazio, and one of the oldest known anywhere, was announced in 2025, dated between 9,300 and 7,500 B.C.
• The four lakes -- Paola, Caprolace, Monaci and Fogliano, brackish lagoons about two metres deep, declared a wetland of international importance in 1976.
• Pantani dell'Inferno -- the birdwatching point opposite Lago di Caprolace, where brackish and fresh water meet.
• The 22 km dune -- fine sand from below Torre Paola to Capo Portiere, with a ridge up to 27 m and wooden walkways across it.
• The dwarf palm -- on the sun-facing Quarto caldo, the only spontaneous palm in Europe and a relict of warmer epochs.
• The Mezzomonte cork wood -- about 25 hectares where the promontory's north slope meets the plain.
• Zannone -- the uninhabited island annexed in 1979, the only one in the Pontine archipelago with its original vegetation cover, home to protected mouflon.
• The sea caves -- Grotta Azzurra, Grotta del Presepe, the Cinque Grotte or "Cathedral", Grotta Barbara and Grotta della Maga Circe.