To set out to discover the historic centre of Cervia, I suggest you locate yourself in the centre of Piazza Garibaldi, exactly halfway between the Palazzo Comunale and the Duomo.
Take a 360° turn on yourself: you are exactly in the centre of the original “quadrilateral".
From this privileged view, you can understand the orthogonal plan that included 4 doors (unfortunately only 1 survived), but it is easy to understand that in the original project the altar of the church was clearly visible, when the doors were open, already from the end of Viale Roma.
On the façade of the Palazzo Comunale there are several commemorative monuments, but the one that I personally consider the most important is the one with the passage of the Divine Comedy «Ravenna sta come stata è molt'anni: l'aguglia da Polenta la si cova, sì che Cervia ricuopre cò suoi vanni.» Inferno, Canto XXVII
Few, in fact, associate Cervia with such an ancient and prestigious historical reality.
To continue our tour, I suggest you stop at the piadine kiosk inside the Piazzetta Pisacane (Piazza delle Erbe): believe me, it's worth it. Walking along the path of the internal walls you will meet 4 "cantons" which in ancient times housed: the prisons (N-E side), the common oven (N-W side), the Theater (S-W side) and the after-work of the Salinari (S-E side).
Not everyone knows that in each of these, there was the “bulwark" (“baluardo”) which is a secret passage for a quick and discreet escape route in case of need.
