Eocene Marine Biodiversity of the Alpone Valley

Originally planned for 2020, you can guess why we had to postpone our road trip through Northern Italy to 2021. But that gave us the opportunity to add the new TWHS Eocene Marine Biodiversity of the Alpone Valley to our itinerary.

I can’t tell you how many of the 39 fossil deposit sites can be visited or are even worth seeing. But it’s certainly true that there is a very lovely, well-preserved fossil fish and plant collection to see and you find this not down in the valley, but all the way up the hill in the small Museo Dei Fossili in the village of Bolca. In Summer, especially in August, you can also visit the nearby Pesciara mine, “the fish bowl”. Getting to the mine does include a hike of little over 1 km. 

Bolca is a bit in the middle of nowhere from the main roads and the big cities, and part of the route is slow mountain roads. Entrance fee is very acceptable though, just a few euros. This appears to be the official website, but only in Italian: https://museodeifossili.it/  There’s another site that has information also in German, and a little bit in English:  http://www.museofossilibolca.eu/en/

(Note: In palaeontology circles the area is very famous. Bolca fossils can be found in a variety of natural history museums all over the world.)