PARK OF SAN SILVESTRO
opened officially in 1996, was founded in order to keep the memory alive and favour the grasp of a complex history which has always been tied to the mining activity. The area of the Park is indeed rich in minerals called “sulphides” formed following geological processes dating back to around 5 million years ago. The sulphides contain sulphur related to metals such as copper, lead, iron and zinc.
The traces of the extraction of metalliferous minerals and rocks indelibly mark the hills of the Campigliese. Even today, in mines which have been now closed for almost 30 years, the intensive use of the quarry materials persists (limestones and minerals for the ceramic industry)
The archaeological research began half-way through the Eighties, endeavouring to retrace the stages in mining work organized systematically already in Etruscan times. The cramped and tortuous shafts excavated by this ancient people, barely wide enough for the shoulders of a man, represent the first approach in mining prospecting.



  

ARCHEOLOGICAL PARK OF BARATTI AND POPULONIA
Stretching over 80 hectares between the slopes of the promontory of Piombino and the Gulf of Baratti, it is presented as a real open-air museum, glittering with ferrous slag which show the impressiveness of the industrial Etruscan village. The Park includes a significant part of the ancient town of Populonia, a unique Etruscan settlement  built directly on the sea, with its necropolises, the calcarenite quarries and the industrial working quarters for iron coming from the hematite deposits on the Island of Elba. The park is spread over various areas of visit which enable the visitor to appreciate the transformation of the scenery over the centuries
The wooded coast of the promontory overlooks the archipelago: since days of old the dark silhouettes of the islands including Elba and Corsica have constituted the picturesque scenes of a landscape of land and water. Indeed, up until the modern reclamations, the plain extending to the internal of the promontory of Piombino was a series of lakes and lagunas, rich with fish and swamp vegetation.
This was the landscape of the 8th-9th Century B.C., when important houses were built on the Acropolis to accommodate the most ancient aristocracies of Populonia. From these houses there remains faint and picturesque traces on the summit of the acropolis, not distant from the monumental structures of another Populonia, the Roman one which around the 2nd Century B.C. built important temples, thermal spas and sanctuaries right in the heart of the city. A network of itineraries joins up the city of the houses and temples to the industrial city and the necropolises which lie on the first hills surrounding the inlet. As in ancient times, the routes follow the original roads, crossing the woods and the Mediterranean scrub and opening up to unexpected views alternating over the Gulf of Baratti or the open sea and the Island of Elba.
One of these routes leads to another landscape, that of Medieval times. Among the woods of the promontory, the remains of the Benedictine monastery of San Quirico tell of a lost city and a renewed interest for the natural resources and minerals of the region.

ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF POPULONIA
The Museum is an integral part of the Archaeological Park of Baratti and Populonia project, and is the main show-case for the network of Parks of the Val di Cornia. With the aid of attractive reconstructions of ancient landscapes, activities and settings, it explains the changes brought about by man's presence on the promontory from prehistory to present times.

The Museum is housed in the Palazzo Nuovo in the historic centre of Piombino. The Palazzo was built in the early 19th century for the ruling couple Felice and Elisa Bonaparte (Napoleon's sister), within the fortified "Cittadella" which Leonardo da Vinci had been involved in designing.


It laid out over 1800sq.m. on three floors and exhibits more than 3000 artefacts including prehistoric tools, finds excavated in Populonia's Etruscan cemeteries, and Roman objects.

Outstanding among these latter is the silver amphora found in 1968 in the sea between Baratti and San Vincenzo, a masterpiece of great intrinsic and artistic value.

The scientific exhibition project, handled by the Department of Archaeology of the University of Siena, has focused much attention on the teaching and communication aspects of the scientific data.

FORESTRY PARK OF POGGIO NERI IN SASSETTA
The Poggio Neri park consists of an extensive hill forest dominated by holm oak and chestnut, and offers many opportunities for open air leisure activities like trekking, excursions on horseback, mushroom picking, chestnut gathering, hunting and bicycle excursions.
To promote the rediscovery of this fascinating area, the park has created well-signed trails for hiking, horse-riding and cycling.
There are rest areas equipped for picnics, and ancient springs have been made accessible for drinking purposes.
The difficult life of the charcoal burners can be experienced through a faithful reconstruction set up near an abandoned chestnut drying barn (The Museum of the Wood).