Sale Marino Artigianale di Cervia

The Cervia pans were already working in Roman times and grew so far that in 1698 the townspeople had to rebuild their village some kilometres away. The state took them over in 1959 and threw the 144 harvesting basins into one, worked mechanically once a year, which lost the older method: each salter used to split his basin into five parts and lift the salt from one of them every day, the only way to keep out the bitterer salts, which need longer and stronger brine to crystallise.