Introduction

A dense network of geographical, historical, and cultural filaments and nods seems to surround the Adratic Sea. The Approdi Project was meant to be an attempt to reconnect some of these threads. The Approdi Project - From Ancient Maritime Routes to Eco-Touristic Destinations - is a European project that focuses on the promotion and valorization of five ancient harbor sites within the Adriatic- Ionian area: Corfu, Greece Dubrovnik, Croatia Durrës, Albania Ortona, Italy Venice, Italy In the past, all these involved territories hosted significant ancient harbors. Nowadays, similar destinations are often considered scarcely attractive for tourists and quite useless to cities’ development. Additionally, there’s always an insufficient involvement of community actors in the cultural heritage valorisation. Approdi involved territories are characterized for having been in the past landing places of ancient maritime commercial routes. These harbor areas have been always considered marginal to cities’ development, having been seen mostly as boarding and landing places, thus scarcely attractive for visitors. Anyway, these places enclose the history of towns to be valorized and made as “common value” and can then represent public spaces for citizens as well as for tourists, besides being included into cultural, historical, and touristic paths. The common territorial challenge faced by the project is then that ancient harbor sites have a high but unused potential for economic growth as ecotourism destinations, especially off-season and are also characterized by an insufficient involvement of community actors in cultural heritage promotion and valorization.