I2 Veneto Ring
Regione Veneto - The Land of Venice

Oasi Ca' di Mezzo
Area always open to the public. Guided tours by reservation by contacting Legambiente Saccisica. / Reeds growing in the shallow water, shrubs and tree plants create environments that provide food and shelter for a large number of animal species. These environments are particularly important for breeding and wintering birds. Many small mammals also find ecological niches suitable for their survival. Some flowers found at Cà di Mezzo are in rarefaction throughout the country and protected by regional laws. / The site is open and free, displaying information tables on the local fauna and flora. In addition, birdwatchers can use the sighting huts nestled in the vegetation. / The Cà di Mezzo phytodepuration area, located in the municipality of Codevigo, was implemented by the Adige Bacchiglione Reclamation Consortium. The implementation project is aimed at the natural purification (reduction of nutrient load) of water coming from the Altipiano Canal and draining into the Venice Lagoon. For this purpose, a complex system of basins, canals and islands has been built, allowing suspended solids, along with phosphorus and heavy metals to settle within the wetland area, thanks to the reduction of water velocity and the intricate marsh vegetation.
Nature reserve

Battaglia Terme
Viewpoint

Castello del Catajo
Viewpoint

Molini Mezzavia
Viewpoint

Bolzani

Mandriola-Sant Agostino

Canale Battaglia

Museo La Specola
The Padua Astronomical Observatory, which is still located inside the Specola, is now one of the main research facilities of the National Institute of Astrophysics and has been producing high quality research at an international level for over two centuries. Since 1994 it has opened its oldest nucleus, the tower, to the city, transforming it into an astronomical museum. / The High Tower was actually built during the tyrannical reign of Ezzelino II da Romano, as part of the bastioned Castle he had created in 1242; the highest tower was in fact where he kept and tortured his prisoners. The Carraresi, who were lords of Padua in the fourteenth century, then used the ruins of the old castle as the basis for new fortifications, and embellished the building with splendid frescoes. In their day, therefore, the tower was one of the focal points of political, social and cultural life within the city. In the period of Venetian rule, the top of the tower become the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Padua (the section of castle alongside it being converted to a residence for the astronomer). / The new use was the result of recommendations to the Senate of the Venetian Republic from Giuseppe Toaldo, a monk and astronomer, and thus in 1777 the tower became known as La Specola, from the Latin Specula astronomica [Astronomical Observatory]. / This new Observatory was one of the finest in eighteenth-century Europe and was visited by such illustrious figures as Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who in his 1786 account of his travels in Italy described the splendid panorama that could be enjoyed from the top of the tower. In the nineteenth century, the structure and equipment of the Specula underwent modernisation; a third cupola was added and a pavilion was erected on the adjacent tower to house the Mertz refractor.
Historical Site

Piazza Prato della Valle

Fonte vicino al capitello
Spring

Fonte
Spring

Colle Pauso
A hill of great archaeological interest for the findings of Roman artifacts, among which stands a votive disc dating from the first century BC and the first century AC. It was therefore, in all likelihood, also a place of worship. / The Pauso, between the plain and the hilly belt, has been a site of safe human attendance since a distant past, connecting the transit route and the transhumance towards the pastures of the mountains of the Plateau of the Seven Municipalities. Around the year 1000, the top of the hill was already home to an elementary defensive apparatus, a fortress whose consistency grew in the following two centuries assuming the configuration of a powerful and robust fortified structure, a real castrum with a tower circle, a donjon and a tower. In other words, Pauso hosted the fortified structure, the first Castle of Marostica (before the birth of the Scaliger walled city), playing a role of considerable strategic and political importance during the struggles between Vicenza and the Ezzelini (from the end of the XII century to the death of Ezzelino III da Romano occurred in 1259). / A 1262 document confirms that the fortified complex on the Pauso consisted of an all walled structure with a palace and a tower. Three other towers, according to this document, dominated the hills of Marostica: one, still on Pauso, one on Pausolino and the third on Mount Agù. The fortified structure on the Pauso, now no longer existing, protected the parish church of Santa Maria (at its feet) and the inhabitants of the village below, the most "ancient" Marostica. The castle on the Pauso resisted the attacks of the Paduans during the First Paduan-Scaliger War of 1312-1314, which caused so much devastation to the village below, in the wake of the settlement of the Scaliger domain in Marostica (1311). / Todayon the top of the hill, on the site of the ancient fortified complex, stands a cross, whose presence is documented already between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Natural Monument

Torrente La Valletta
The Valletta stream, which originates from the confluence of the Spini Valley (to the north-east), the Speroni Valley (to the north) and the Gallandolo Valley (to the west), collects the waters of the water basin that extends between Rubbio, Pradipaldo, Tortima and the contrade of Erta and is rich in many springs and rocky ravines. Beautiful the wild environments, not always easily accessible, offered by waterfalls-rapids along its beds, as in the area that includes the Gorghi Scuri.
Natural Monument

Colline di San Benedetto
The Hills of San Benedetto are so called in memory of an ancient Benedictine convent, unfortunately no longer existing. They are located along the trekking path "From ancient convents to a jewel of nature: the Gorghi Scuri", among the most evocative places of our territory. During the walk people can immerse themselves in stretches of lush woods alternating with long rows of vines and olive trees planted on terraces that follow the sinuous lines of the hill. / MONASTERY AND CHURCH OF SAN BENEDETTO / Going up the slope of the hill of San Benedetto, on the plateau, you can see today only a few square stones gathered disorderly in a heap, the only vestige of the monastery and the church of San Benedetto. Memories of the buildings can be found in the will of a certain Zilio, who left some money in 1253. Since then, the life of the monastery and the name of its rectors are regularly documented on the occasion of the recurrent pastoral visits of the bishops of Padua (to whose dependencies lay the central site) which recorded the state of conservation and the economic situation. In 1488 Bishop Pietro Barozzi verified that no trace of the monastery remained and that the church was in serious decay. / In the second half of 1500 the Church ceased to belong to the Benedictines, passing under the patronage of the noble Bianchi family who rebuilt it. In 1571 the bishop of Padua Ormanetto, in his pastoral visit to the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta visited the Oratorío di San Benedetto, rebuilt by the Bianchi brothers who made it their family chapel. / Several rectors succeeded each other in the custody of the Church of San Benedetto from 1571 to 1776, the year that saw the appointment of the last rector, Giuseppe Bonomo. After his ministry, the slow decay of the Church began until in the second half of 1800 it was stripped of its assets and transformed into a dwelling.
Natural Monument

Croce e Punto panoramico

Acquedotto Romano La Bot
The aqueduct, functionally linked to the Roman baths for which it ensured the water supply, developed along a total route of about 600-700 meters from the water intake of the "Tintina" spring (near the northern slope of Montericco) to the town square, where the thermal building was located. From the spring to approximately the medieval gate known as "Pusterla del Colmarion," the water was carried by a system of lead pipes, some of which were discovered in the 1800s by the scholar Pacifico Scomazzetto. From this point, where another ancient spring also flowed, the aqueduct developed into a tunnel excavated in the “Montericco” for about 157 meters. The distribution of water to the thermal building likely occurred directly through pipes found in the past several times in the final section of the hydraulic work, right near the current exit in Piazza Brugnoli. The Roman tunnel (averaging 50 centimeters in width and 1 to 2 meters in height) features at least four different lining techniques that are connected to the varying geological matrix of the ground encountered along the way. The original hydraulic system can be traced back to the 1st century AD. In perhaps medieval times, the Roman aqueduct became part of a more complex hydraulic system due to the construction, in the northern section, of an overlapping gallery, which follows the path of the older structure, called “Cava” or “Cava delle Monache” (due to its proximity to the Monastery of San Luigi or San Pietro). The first restoration interventions on the structure date back to the early 1800s, but it was only in 1918 that architect Léon Gurekian documented and analyzed the structure as a historical document and with the report of the “Commission for the protection of Monuments and Landscapes of Asolo” in 1922, he obtained, in 1923, the monument's protection status. Since that date, the “Bot” has once again fallen into oblivion; the “Cava” was used as a storage cellar and, during the last conflict, as an air raid shelter. / Only in the last ten years has the hydraulic work been the subject of a specific study and a complete graphic reconstruction.
Cave

FLORA E FAUNA
Nel periodo primaverile-estivo è possibile osservare la nidificazione della Folaga, del Tuffetto, della Gallinella d'acqua e del più raro e maestoso Svasso maggiore. Tutte specie nidificanti lungo le rive ed attorno i bacini più ampi del fiume. Tra gli uccelli nidificanti spicca per importanza la nidificazione della Moretta, un'anatra tuffatrice molto rara come nidificante in Italia.Volgendo lo sguardo lungo le rive del fiume, si possono rilevare assembramenti di Cavedani nonché Tinche e Carpe occupate a svolgere i rituali tipici della riproduzione. Tutto attorno si assiste alla crescita dell'Hippuris vulgaris, una pianta un tempo molto diffusa lungo il Sile ed ora in via di riduzione a causa forse della modificazione dello stato delle acque. Molto gradevoli e delicati sono anche le infiorescenze del Morso di Rana (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae) che si sviluppano nelle acque basse e si mescolano alle foglioline dalla Lemna minor che cresce in abbondanza.
Biotope

Girasile, la greenway del Parco del Sile
Leaving Treviso for the "Restera," we reach Quarto d'Altino along the banks of the Sile River, then reaching the Portegrandi Basin and subsequently Caposile and Jesolo.
Nature reserve

Torre campanaria Piazza S. Michele
Built in the Ravenna style with a cylindrical structure and has a height of 56 meters. At the top stands the statue of Saint Michael the Archangel, 4.80 meters tall, created by Toni Benetton. From the bell chamber, it is possible to observe a breathtaking panorama of 360 degrees. In particular, the bell towers of Venice and Torcello, the UNESCO Prosecco hills, the Euganean Hills, and on particularly clear days, the Dolomite mountains can also be seen very well.
Historical Site

I2 Veneto Ring
Venice, Chioggia, Abano Terme, Vicenza, Bassano del Grappa, Treviso
longDistanceCyclingTrack