The Arda torrent downstream from Castell’Arquato is a true paradise for birdwatchers and aspiring geologists. Duck, cormorants, moorhens, kingfishers live undisturbed along its pebbled sides, protected by high banks resulting from millennial erosion while birds of prey fly over the woods nearby. But long ago this land had been covered by the sea, as witnessed by the fossil fauna and flora which emerged after the waters retreated. Marine sediments are visible walking through the area, which is protected and is part of the geological reserve of the Piacenziano, although amateurs can view exhibits from the very distant Pliocene and Pleistocene eras in the Geological Museum at Castell’Arquato, which also boasts a fossil whale.
