The Saracen Tower of Bellaria was built by the Papal States after repeated raids by Turkish pirates on the Adriatic coast, together with five other towers presiding over the area between Rimini and Tavollo, but it is the only one left. Built at the end of the seventeenth century, has maintained its three floors with vaulted ceilings, connected by a spiral staircase. At that time the garrison guard of each tower had five armed soldiers and a commander with the first gunpowder weapons such as muskets and mortars. Crucial was the bell tower, which, in case of danger, warned the inhabitants, who could find shelter inside the Saracen tower. After the monitoring function, the Tower of Bellaria for a period became a sort of sanatorium where sick people on suspicion of contagion, arriving with ships on site for commercial traffic, were quarantined. In more recent times it has housed the barracks of the Guardia di Finanza and currently a Seashell Museum. Open from April to September (Via Torre 75, phone 0541 343 746), the museum houses an interesting collection with specimens from all parts of the world, with beautiful pieces of shells, mollusks, and skeletons of marine organisms, madrepores, echinoderms, crustaceans, turtles shells. Among the most important pieces are some of the Indian Ocean nautilus, Tritonian, pearl oysters, and the rare ships used by Argonaut for the incubation of eggs. The extraordinary natural heritage housed within the Saracen Tower, is a great way to immerse yourself in the hidden world among the waves of the sea and discover the complex evolution of the tiny inhabitants of the underwater world.