Museum of Salt Making, Sečovlje

View of Museum of Salt Making, Sečovlje, 2020. Established in 1991 amidst the former Sečovlje Salina (salt pans) – now the protected Sečovlje Regional Park – on the right bank of the Giassi channel, the Museum of Salt Making, Sečovlje comprises a salt maker's dwelling with attached bread oven and several salt pans. Among the once numerous salt-pans in the Gulf of Trieste only those in Sečovlje and Strunjan have been preserved, therefore representing ethnological, technical, historical, settlement, and landscape heritage of exceptional significance. The Sečovlje salt pans are internationally important wetlands and were thus listed on the Ramsar List in 1993. In 2015 the traditional salt making was listed in the national register of intangible heritage.

Background

The oldest saying about Piran tells: "Piran xe fato de sal!" ("Piran was made out of salt!") Salt making was one of the major economic branches of Piran (beside fishing and craft) which enabled the development of the town. The citizens had two dwellings, in Piran during the winter and in Sečovlje during the summer, when the salt making season began.

The Sečovlje Regional Park covers about 650 hectares along the Slovene-Croatian boundary with he active salt making taking place in its northern part, called Lera. The southern part, called Fontanigge, is separated by the bed of the Drnica Stream and overgrown by salt-loving vegetation – halophytes. The Fontanigge is knit with large basins, criss-crossed by the system of ancient levees. Along the former salt pan are scattered stone made houses, which co-create the truly unique image of the salina landscape. The traditional way of salt making, originating from the 14th century, was abandoned in the 1960s, but is still practised within the Museum of Salt making.

The Sečovlje salt pans are a scene of Genius Loci Lera Workshop, organised annually by Obalne galerije - Coastal Galleries and the Soline Pridelava soli company within the Ex-tempore Piran - International Painting and Ceramics festival since 2003.

Collections

Within the Sečovlje Regional Park one can see the abandoned and the still functioning salt fields, channels and levees with stone walls, steps and sluice gates (with only their stone parts preserved), paths, bridges, wind pumps, and salt-pan houses, including their ruins and localities. The salt maker's dwelling is a two-storey house which functioned as both family residence on the first floor and salt storage on the ground floor.

The museum is organised within a renovated salt pan house Caserma. The artefacts, photographs and texts which form the collection illustrate the working and living environment of the salt makers. On the ground floor visitors can learn about the development of salt making in the north-east Adriatic. Tools used for work in the salt pans and store houses are displayed here, and in nearby restored salt pans a group of salt workers demonstrate traditional methods.

In the Lera Centre of Salt Making one can see a film on the cultural heritage of Sečovlje, in a multi vision room throug modern technology one can explore the salt pans, flora and fauna, commonly invisible to the common visitor.