Where we are

One of the liveliest places of Bellaria of yesterday and today is the port. Since the end of the nineteenth century, a hamlet of houses, more little than huts, inhabited by fishermen who docked their boats in the river, extended on the mouth of the river Uso, which became a shelter port.
There were spears, flat-bottomed pinnaces, and fishing boats, small sailing boats, rowing boats used for “land” fishing, that is close to the coast. Not always, however, they managed to sail or to return because of the too low sea depths which were very dangerous in case of rough sea. This brought a perennial claim by the navy of Bellaria.
When eel fishing occurred, a real autumn migration to the delta of the Po took place, where men spent months in huts of wood and straw. The youngest and the oldest ones, in good season, practiced “treats”, a network stretched from the boat and then pulled manually from the shore.
The fishwives finally took charge, by bicycle, to bring the fish to the villages and to the scattered houses of the hinterland, often exchanging agricultural products. The fishing activity in Bellaria has never stopped, even though the port does not allow the berthing of larger vessels such as the ones of Rimini and Cesenatico despite the improvement of the facilities. Today, the people engaged in fishing are about two hundred gathered in cooperatives.
Using innovative trawling techniques they devote themselves to the trawling, to the fishing of clams using gill nets in trammel nets, fish-traps for the capture of cuttlefishes, with baskets, of sea snails, with cugulli or bertòvelli (fish traps), of eels, or they are engaged in the cooking of marine mussels and oysters. Furthermore, in the streets of the country the call of the fishmongers is sometimes heard, but most of the product is sold through supermarkets.

Gelso Park is one of the largest green lungs that can be found in the urban areas of the Adriatic Coast .Its name stems from the lake located almost in the centre of the park where you can relax in the rich greenery and walk in the thematic areas such as the one dedicated to games, a butterfly garden or the new area Jurassic Gelso, in which prehistoric time is recreated through different objects of fibreglass. This makes the park one of the funniest and most interesting destinations for children and adults, whether they are residents or tourists. Gelso Park is also the ideal place to relax practicing fishing, jogging or walking in the shade of the vegetation and the cool lake.
Pavese Park, located further south, is an area of particular fascination for its adjacency to the free beach where parties and events are periodically organized. Right on the beach in front of Pavese Park summer evenings are animated by the great concerts organized by Beky Bay, the centre of entertainment that attracts young people from every part of Romagna.

Inside the tower, built in the seventeenth century by fishermen, you can admire the splendid malacology and paper money collection.
After the invasion and looting of Turkish pirates in the last years of the sixteenth century, the Papal States finally decided to build a series of towers along the coast, from Tavollo to Bellaria, to defend the inhabitants of the coast. Within them, at that time standing very high on the dunes and on the beach, there was a garrison of five soldiers and a commander, equipped with “muskets, mortar, powder and fuses.” At the sound of the bell, in case of danger, the residents could “be closed inside it” and organize for the defence. The Bellaria Tower was built in 1673 by the Apostolic Chamber for the fortification of the coast, the only one left with the original characters of six in three-story vaulted and with a spiral staircase. Over time, the function of the towers was transformed to host quarantine “suspected infection” from the sea for commercial traffic, “especially from Genoa” and for surveillance against smugglers. More recently, the Tower of Bellaria hosted the headquarters of the Italian Finance Police.