Gerre de' Caprioli

The hamlet where the town hall stands is called Bosco ex Parmigiano, and that ex is no affectation: until 1800 this land on the left bank of the Po really did belong to the duchy of Parma and Piacenza, which held possessions on this side of the water. The name of the municipality, meanwhile, describes the ground itself: gere are the gravel banks the river left behind.

Gravel here was also a trade: on the yard known as the ex piarda Guidotti it was hauled up out of the Po, and today that building has become a documentation centre and a hall for the village. On the bank there survives a patch of lowland forest, the kind that once accompanied the river along its whole course, a park since 1999.