Archaeology, lights and images at sunset: the VALUE Plus Cultural Festival comes to the Etruscan city of Spina
07/09/2026
Comacchio (Ferrara), 3 October 2026
On Saturday 3 October, the Open Air Archaeological Park of Spina at Stazione Foce, in the heart of the Comacchio Valleys, hosted “Archeologia, luci e immagini a Stazione Foce” (Archaeology, lights and images at Stazione Foce). The event was one of the stops of the VALUE Plus Cultural Festival for the Po Delta cultural district.
It was organised by the Istituto Delta Ecologia Applicata (IDECO) together with the Municipality of Comacchio and in collaboration with the Museo Delta Antico. Residents, families and tourists were invited to discover the park in a new way: in the late afternoon and as the sun went down over the lagoon.
The park was created by the Municipality of Comacchio as a pilot action of the earlier Interreg Italy–Croatia project VALUE. It holds a full-scale experimental reconstruction of an Etruscan settlement from the 5th–4th century BC. Within VALUE Plus, the site has been further improved to make it more accessible and to strengthen its digital fruition.
The programme had three parts:
- Guided tours with archaeologists, covering the reconstructed Etruscan dwellings, building techniques and materials, and the archaeological context of Spina and the Comacchio lagoons.
- Presentation of the new lighting, installed through VALUE Plus. It highlights the reconstructions and makes the park usable in the evening as well.
- Open-air projections at sunset of images and multimedia content about the site, with the reconstructed buildings and the lagoon landscape as a backdrop.
The event brought archaeology, landscape and light together. It also tested the park as a venue for evening cultural activities, alongside its daytime use by schools and visitors to the Comacchio Valleys. It helped raise awareness of VALUE Plus and of the Po Delta cultural district among both locals and visitors.
Looking ahead, the partners plan to turn evening openings with lighting and projections into a regular format, possibly linked to the tourist season and to boat trips in the Comacchio Valleys. They also want to offer bilingual Italian/English content so the park reaches more international visitors.