Porto Caleri Coastal Botanical Garden

The botanical garden at Porto Caleri, near Rosolina at the northern edge of the Po Delta, is not a planted garden. It is a protected stretch of natural coast with a boardwalk through it.

What it does, in about an hour of walking, is take you through the full sequence of a natural Adriatic shoreline: open beach, foredune, fixed dune, dune slack, pine and holm-oak wood, and then the lagoon behind.

Almost all of this coast has been built over. Porto Caleri is one of the few places where the whole progression survives intact, which makes it the clearest possible explanation of how this shore is put together.

Stay on the boardwalks. Dune vegetation is what holds the sand in place, and it is destroyed by footfall faster than by anything else -- this is the entire reason the garden exists in the form it does.

Do not pick anything. Several of the dune species here are rare and are protected precisely because their habitat has nearly vanished from this coast.

Keep noise down and stay on the route near the lagoon, where birds nest on open ground in spring and early summer.

Take litter out with you, and come outside July and August if you can -- the whole Rosolina area is under heavy pressure in those weeks.

The garden charges a small admission and is open seasonally -- generally spring through early autumn, with limited days and hours outside the summer. Check before travelling.

It is near Rosolina Mare, reached by car; there is parking at the entrance. Public transport is not practical.

The marked route takes about an hour at an unhurried pace, and there are shorter loops.

Much of the route is on boardwalk and is reasonably level, though sections cross sand and are harder going; ask at the entrance about the accessible loop.

Bring water, sun protection and insect repellent -- mosquitoes here are serious from late spring.