Secovlje Salt Pans

Salt has been made at Sečovlje since at least the thirteenth century, and the northern section at Lera is still worked by the medieval method: seawater is let through a chain of shallow evaporation basins and the salt is raked by hand off a petola, a cultivated mat of algae, gypsum and carbonate that keeps the crystals from touching the mud. The southern section at Fontanigge was abandoned in the 1960s and its ruined salters' houses and derelict basins are now the richest bird habitat on the coast.

Highlights

• The petola method - salt raked by hand off a cultivated microbial mat, as it was in the Middle Ages.
• The Lera basins - the working section with its channels, pumps and wooden gates.
• The Fontanigge ruins - abandoned pans and salters' houses left to the birds.
• The birdlife - the coast's richest wetland, on a major migration route.

When to go

The harvest runs from June to September and is the point of a visit. April to June is best for migrating birds. Winter closes much of the site and the salt work stops.

Before you go

There is almost no shade and the pans are brutally hot in July and August. The two sections are far apart and each needs its own approach; walking between them is long. The pans have been a Ramsar wetland since 1993, the salt museum won a Europa Nostra prize in 2003, and the salt is sold as Piran Salt under protected designation of origin.

Nearby

Portoroz is north, and Piran is beyond it.

Key facts