Dinosaur Park in Peccioli.
This park doesn’t just tell the story of the prehistoric world. It is also the story of one man’s life. The park is an hour’s drive from Florence.
In the last century, Erardo Geroni buys a few hectares of land near Volterra, where he builds a small house for his family and cultivates a vineyard. While working on the land, he finds a significant number of fossils in it.
His idea to show and tell about his findings and about the inhabitants of the prehistoric world is born.
Many models of dinosaurs that lurk in small caves or peek out from behind trees are his creations.
The park is set in a light pine forest. The park consists of about three hectares of green space with 22 life-size reproductions of dinosaurs. Paleozoic Era reptiles, which lived about 40 million years before the dinosaurs; eighteen Mesozoic Era reptiles, commonly called “dinosaurs”; and three Cenozoic Era mammals, including the erect man.
There are also periods – Pliocene and Pleistocene, from 5 million years ago to 11,000 years ago – because scientists are proving to us that the Cenozoic Era is not over.
Besides 22 models of prehistoric reptiles, there are several rides, a small playground and a cafeteria.
The park is open: from mid-March to mid-November every day
.
