Learning by experience! Stefania Gialdroni, Chiara Lo Giudice, David De Concilio and Jake Dyble along the waterways used by merchants from the Middle Ages until the 1960s to transport men and goods.

Thanks to the director of the Museum of river navigation (Museo della navigazione fluviale), Maurizio Ulliana, yesterday we had the opportunity to navigate the canals connecting Padua with Battaglia Terme, a very important junction for the transport of goods, especially to Chioggia, since the end of the 12th century, when the Battaglia canal was built. We were accompanied on this trip on a ‘topa’ (a flat-bottomed boat typical of the Venetian lagoon) called “Angelina” by Captain Loris, an authentic ‘barcaro’, and by the boat’s owner, Mario, who told us so many anecdotes that it would take several more posts to tell them all.

We passed the “Conca della navigazione di Battaglia terme“, an artificial basin which functions as a kind of “elevator”. It is an extraordinary monument of hydraulic engineering that, by allowing a maximum height difference of more than seven metres, connects the Battaglia canal, i.e. the Padua and Euganean territory, with the Rialto-Vigenzone, i.e. the sea.