On foot or by bike along three itineraries of the Po Delta

There are three marked routes that allow you to get closer than ever to biodiversity, where on the horizon sea and sky merge like water and land. It is an uncontaminated territory, with nature in continuous evolution, to be respected and discovered on foot or by bicycle also with the help of the maps developed by the Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Nutrition of the University of Padua in collaboration with the Veneto Regional Natural Park of the Po Delta - MAB Unesco Biosphere Reserve and the Goletta Lab Foundation. This area is a candidate for recognition as a Biosphere Reserve of the Mab Unesco program. The maps are distributed by the Park organization on the occasion of all events organized in the near future and during activities for schools.

The first route starts among holm oaks, junipers, pines and dunes from the Coastal Botanical Garden of Veneto in Porto Caleri. It is an oasis of biodiversity where researchers from the BCA department investigate species at risk of extinction such as the Emys orbicularis turtle, the European pond turtle or study insects that live in sandy and dune environments. Starting from the Rosolina Mare car park, you can walk for about 90 minutes, less by bike, along the Via delle Valli Nord until you reach Albarella. An itinerary that allows you to observe the birdlife of these brackish areas, skirting the fishing valleys where you can come across flamingos. Equally evocative is the Via delle Valli Sud, also walkable in about an hour and a half, which starts from Porto Levante until you reach the branch of the Po di Maistra and the wild beach of Boccasette.

After traveling along a paved stretch you arrive at the small bee museum of Ca' Cappellino housed in a former school. Bees are the sentinels of the territory and the climate and in the area beekeepers produce different types of honey from the delta, including the salty aftertaste of the salt marsh honey that comes from the foraging of the limonium plant that grows in hostile environments such as those of the salt marshes, lands that are submerged by the tides. A few minutes from Ca' Cappellino, in the locality of Bonelli and Ca' Pisani, new hubs for wild fauna are being created, places where field research is carried out and attempts are made to imagine new paths for a coexistence between animals, humans and the territory destined to become, in the near future, spaces open to people who will visit the Delta.

The second route starts from San Basilio, with a Roman and early Christian archaeological area and the small 9th ​​century church built by the Benedictine monks of Pomposa. By bike or car you can then reach the Regional Land Reclamation Museum of Ca' Vendramin on the canal called Scolo Veneto, opposite the Po di Goro. The reference point is the chimney over 60 meters high made of terracotta bricks and here today there is the headquarters of the Educational Information Center of the Po Delta as well as the Land Reclamation Museum. The buildings date back to the early 1900s and today represent examples of industrial archaeology that tell the story of the land reclamation work, thanks to the pumps powered first by steam and then converted to electricity, which then transformed the marshes into cultivable land. After this stage here is the unmissable route, to be done on foot, by bike or by boat, along the Po della Donzella. In particular, the Donzella ring cycle route follows a route of about 60 kilometres starting from Ca' Tiepolo to reach the Ca' Mello Oasis, which between late spring and early summer is filled with violets with its large lavender field, where it is possible to observe birds such as the marsh harrier or the purple heron and where the return of some wolf specimens is being studied by researchers with the aim of monitoring the phenomenon and developing forms of coexistence. In another stage, you can discover the Delta IGP rice with its particular large grains and cultivated two metres below sea level by businesses such as the Moretto family farm. Because in this difficult but not hostile territory, you can cultivate the land. There are many ploughed fields and several short supply chain farms work here. This theme is at the heart of the research activity of the BCA department, so much so that it represents a precious ally for local realities, to focus on the transformations connected to the climate factor - such as the risk of development of dangerous molds in grains - or to prepare tools capable of guaranteeing traceability.

As the last stop on the map there is another example of industrial archaeology: the Polesine Camerini Power Plant, once the largest thermoelectric power plant in Italy, which with the unmistakable profile of its chimney “stands” alone in the middle of the plain and a step away from the water and the suggestive Sacca degli Scardovari, an almost “shameless” symbol of human presence in these lands where nature seems to dominate.