Visitors Centres

It is not easy to describe what a National Park is, nor to explain how to enjoy its peculiarities. That’s why the Visitors Centres have been founded, which are real par excellence Centres, ideal doors to drive the visit inside the National Park. Here you find some structures where you can get useful information on how to discover the Protected Area, where visitors are acquainted with the right knowledge and the respectful fruition of the natural environment. What’s more, they are Green Museums located in wide natural scenarios where thematic stories, highlighting peculiar aspects of the Park, are told, where there are suitable structures for meetings and cultural displays, where publications and brochures are available and where it is possible to buy gadgets, get information, book guide services for tours and whatever you need. (picture: Green Theatre – A. Garcea Visitor Centre,Taverna [Cz] )

Of course, they are the most important, widest and most complete Visitor Centres in Italy, whose fulfilment, in the time, has been accomplished by the “historical” Calabria National Park on territories which are managed by the State Agency Government Forests. They are now part of Sila National Park which aims at concluding some structures, in particular thematic, multimedia, interactive and dynamic museums, which were not realized in the past, because of financial deficiencies. Hundreds of thousands visitors visit these Centres every year, among which there are many school groups coming from central-southern regions of Italy to the National Park, in order to carry out naturalistic, forest and environmental education.

They are “jewels” which the National Park has to be pride of, and which it wants to preserve and improve to make its manifold peculiarities evident and visible, to promote a suitable approach of the visitors to the valuable natural environments. There are two complete Centres: one is located on Cecita shores, in  "Cupone" site in the municipality of Spezzano della Sila (CS), a meaningful picture of which is available above; the second one is close to Mancuso Village, in  "Monaco" site in the municipality of Taverna (CZ), the Nature Centre of which is shown in the picture below.

The Visitor Centres intend to train, inform and educate people to respect the natural, environmental, social and economic resources of the Silan territory through the structures and spaces, set by the State Forestry Department for this aim, which are open and available to a wide range of disabled and elderly persons as well as kids.
Among the most important structures inside the Visitor Centres it is worth to remember: heliports, meeting rooms, thematic museums, centres for naturalistic, forest and environmental education, libraries, green theatres and rooms, nurseries of the Silan biodiversity, gardens of the forest culture, acclimatization and diffusion centres for the wolf, the deer, the roe, the eagle owl, demonstrative and didactical centres for deers, etc… (picture: Visitor Centre Cupone Museum)