Riserva naturale Lo Zingaro [pat 1]

Because of its "old" history the hand of man is always visible in Italy; ergo there are very few places that one could call wilderness. In the Abbruzzi region there's a national park resembling the American ones but much smaller in area. In Sicily where history dates even further, one cannot escape reminders that man was here. There are exceptions albeit in a smaller scale. One is la Riserva Naturale Lo Zingaro. these inlets used to be used by fisherman and very few people ever went there. Living in an island in the midst of the Mediterranean, Sicilians' attitute toward the sea is a complex one. Quasimodo, the Sicilian poet who won the Nobel price for literature in 1959 stated that Sicilians are islands living in an island. The historian Santi Corrente points out that traditionally Sicilians disliked the sea and shunned it because it was the source of all misfortunes. All 14 invasions came by sea. Up to the fifties, the sea was not valued as an aesthetic value and very few houses were close to the sea. Of course,  towns and cities on the sea abounded but even there the population used the sea only commercially. Things have changed and now anything remotely close to the sea has an astronomical value. Ergo we come to this riserva that tries to protect a piece of nature from speculation and over development. Of course Italians are masters at speculation.