Salento's Natural History Museum

Three children pose in front of a full size replica of a dinosaur outside the main building of the Salento natural history museum

Attracted for a one-day conference, I ended up most interested in this developing museum itself. It offers an interesting series of events, broadly environmental in scope but also culinary and traditional, hosted on an evolving site with different environments, all of them mixing education with fun.

At first glance, the situation isn't necessarily promising. An out-of-the-way new build on the outskirts of Calimera (some 17 km from Lecce), the prospect of a thin experience looms. The entry fee isn't cheap - and it's complicated too, because you have to decide up front how many itineraries you want to include in your visit, then select a multiple-entry ticket reflecting how much you expect you'll want to see... Uffa! (as the Italians spell Ugh). So I found myself wondering whether I wasn't going to meet a common species, the Italian white elephant...

However, the place turns out to be worth a full day's visit. I'll break up this article according to the ticket choices on offer, so you can decide what you want to select - or just splash on seeing everything, and take your time over a mix of exotic and local animals, varying tropical and Salentine environments, and brightly lit museum displays.

The vivarium and various display cases (voiceover in Italian)

Woodland and aviary (Parco faunistico)

In the foreground, a troupe of red mushrooms have sprouted through the leaf litter of the wood near an information point

Russula mushrooms in the autumn woodland

I recommend you start a visit here - it's the most outdoorsy part of the Museo, so if the weather turns bad (or too hot) later on, you've seen it already and can hide indoors...

A large eagle, its wing recently repaired, stares back at curious children through the bars of an aviary

This eagle underwent surgical repair to a broken wing

Off to your right as you face the main building, this is a trail through woodland, guided in tight zigzags between roped paths. This makes the best of the holm oak wood, a rare enough habitat in an area which was once heavily forested, but which has been progressively cleared for agriculture since ancient times. The only snag with the windy route is that noisy visitors remain audible throughout. The caged animals seem used to this, though I'd imagine the wildlife takes flight.

A small, brightly coloured bird gets close to the lens of a camera in the parco faunistico

You can get close to the aviaries, nobody minds

As you thread your way around the paths, you'll meet cages of birds, many of which have been rescued by the museum's wildlife rehabilitation service. Some are native animals found injured and brought in for treatment; others are exotic species confiscated by the law from private owners. Some few appear to be simply zoological specimens, but the parco does not have the feel of a traditional zoo. As well as the eagle, I saw various species of owl, peacock, colourful Chinese pheasant and an emu, amongst others.

photographed from below, a large mushroom dominates the leaf litter on the forest floor

The woods offer a rich environment

There are badger setts and fox holes; what you might see will depend on season. In November there were myriad fungi. Later in winter Salento doesn't become a muddy wasteland like parts of northern Europe. Spring soon intervenes, with flowers coming up by late February; but by the end of May grasses and plants are already dried yellow. Summer is the worst time to be out; aim for an early morning visit.

a tame emu is curious enough to afford a close-up of its face through the bars of the aviary

There's a very tame emu housed towards the end of the trail

By the way: wear insect repellent. This is about as close as Salento gets to thick woodland, and the daytime-biting tiger mosquitoes were voracious here, even in late autumn.

The Museum (Museo)

This follows a classic universe - earth - life sort of logic. It won't reframe your point of view, it won't blow your mind wide open, but it'll amuse you for an hour or so. The collections are diverse and colourful; there's plenty to like.

Physics, astronomy, exploration

The first display case here is horrifyingly bad. Plastic models of space exploration vehicles look as though they've been sourced from a toyshop, plonked together with no sense of relative scale, and no apparent point to the collection. My heart sank; surely things can only get better from here..... happily, they do. Apart from an interesting timeline of astronomical thinking throughout human history, this first room on the physics and scale of the universe is best skipped over - humanity did better at explaining this stuff to itself way back in 1977.

Geology

three shots of different display cases full of brightly lit stones in the museum geological display

Bright cases of diverse stones from all around the world

One step better, and the cases are relevant, well organised, and visually appealing. The fluorescence of some stones under UV light provides the excuse for an odd bit of display; the experience isn't slick, but it's worth seeing for the diversity of colour, texture and geometry within all these rocks and minerals.

The biosphere

This is a roller coaster through the phylogeny and diversity of all the large-scale stuff growing on this planet. There's not much about the fundamentals of biology, but as an immersive experience in life's variety it stands out as a good museum experience. Not as sexy as the grand Parisian version, but certainly not bad by comparison.

psychedelic shades of purple and organic textures cover the hard spherical casing of a large sea urchin

Not a plastic spaceship; a sea urchin test (Phyllacanthus)

There are cases of similar-yet-differing forms of many animals from land and sea. There's a frustrating lack of English language signage - but if you've a mobile web connection, that should matter little. The message of life's ability to fill every available niche is communicated well, here. There's no attempt at teaching the history or changeability of taxonomy, Darwin's lessons in taxidermy, or anything of that sort.

a small stuffed carnivore looks lifelike with a bird in its mouth

The taxidermy is lively and well presented

Towards the end of the museum's rooms, almost hidden away beyond the ranks of stuffed mammals and birds, are the "horror pots" of pickled deformities. Overcome your reflex to avoid this stuff, and your kids (or your own inner child) will be delighted. Looming through murky pickling fluid are a few errors of nature - a small display, not exhaustive like the more famous museums of embrology's failures - but informative enough.

a sheep or goat embryo with two heads, white, in preserving fluid

How to get ahead in embryology

Vivarium

Bearded dragon (Pogona)

Reptiles and amphibians make up the majority of these displays. I assumed it was a straightforward exercise of presenting animals in their environments, but the website talks of "fantaecologia" - a word which hardly exists in English, but means "fantasy ecology". There's a gushing description of how visitors become "flabbergasted pilgrims" which seems optimistic (if right-on-the-nail fashionable).

in a nest of plastic foliage, a giant millipede's brown scales are arranged in a protective coil

Giant millipede at rest

For northern Europeans visiting Italy, the bright green lizards which scamper and scatter all over town and country are more likely to be memorable than the larger reptiles behind glass here. Snorkelling off the coast, if you pick the right spot, can be richer than expected. Nevertheless, there are some interesting tropical animals such as Amazonian frogs and an impressive giant millipede which make the vivarium worth a look.

A close-up of a small yellow and black banded frog in a vivarium

Mesocosm / Butterfly House (Mesocosmo)

Under the plastic roof of the mesocosm, plastic trees clad in tropical plants arc over the visitor path

Tropical plants rooted on resin trees

Poster advertising the preview visit

To your left as you enter the site, this certainly isn't an elegant building. But within the cage of steel and corrugated plastic is a warm and humid mock-up of a rainforest environment. Exotic birds flit between resin casts of trees, all hung with exotic flora. The colours are vivid, despite my visiting on the last day of opening before the winter season - and a corresponding absence of butterflies.

I've no idea if this is meant to represent one particular type of rainforest from one continent, or whether it throws together a mix of species. Either way, the effect is worth experiencing.

This part opened in September 2018, so it has yet to complete a full season. The idea is ambitious, so I'll be interested to pen an update on how it goes in future.

The long pointed orange and blue petals of a bird of paradise flower are open above the plant

Does the South African Strelitzia feel out of place in a rainforest?

Practicalities

Open Saturday and Sunday year-round, plus Friday throughout June - August
Opens at 10:30, closes earlier or later depending season
Mesocosm open April to October
Prices from 3 - 15 Euros, depending on reductions and how much you want to see
Guides available for groups >10, cost is 2 Euros a head
There's a friendly cafè, and an open air picnic spot
Public transport? Erm... walk/cycle from Calimera

The page of opening hours and costs is translated here; original (Italian) here.

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A Caper in Salento