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Venice: Terraferma!

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Itineraries in Venice: Mestre and the Mainland of Venice

Venice is not only its historical centre and the mainland too offers visitors many interesting places to visit: without the need of getting too far, just a few minutes away from Venice, there's a whole world do discover.

Starting from Mestre, just on the other side of the bridge connecting Venice to the mainland, and going a little further, everywhere one can find churches, ancient fortresses, beautiful squares enlived by markets and fairs.

Going back into the past, one can follow the ancient routes built by the Romans, who left an indelible sign on the country side, with the typical Roman grid characterising the area of the Decumano (Mirano, Noale).

The Tower of Mestre

The most outstanding monument in Mestre - a largely modern city, offspring of the building boom - is its civic tower.

This is a bell and clock tower clearly and squarely marking the north entrance to the main piazza and the old town centre.

The solid 24-metre tall brick-coloured battlemented tower is a reminder of the historic roots of this mainland city and is evidence of the old walled city.

Now having been restored, it takes on a new life and meaning for the citizens and the cultural life centred round it.

The castle and the walls have both disappeared as have the other ten towers that used to guard the city perimeter.

This is the sole survivor and therefore it's simply known as The Tower.

The restoration works were certainly controversial but they revealed quite a lot.

For example, that the Tower was an open passageway in through the city walls: so a tower entranceway to control the daily whirl of traffic as citizens continually plied to or for, from town to country.

Originally it was a military bulwark, yet also had a civil purpose - it was a gateway joining the Piazza and Via Palazzo, so constituted a 'relational space' in the urban plan.

And it is mainly this role that comes into play today - revived again through architect Guido Zordan's project, commissioned by the City Council and under the direct control of the State Monuments Department. The Tower is no longer 'out of its element' or just a 'ruin' and is certainly not a 'military emplacement'.

It's a new and vital element saved from the past to enrich the future.

The Tower entrance now open to the public is like a little covered square where citizens can read a piece of their history in the stones.

The monument had fallen on hard times, becoming in succession a barracks, a municipal ware house and a tavern.

Moreover, about forty years ago, a building with shops had been added, though in the restoration project this is set to bed emolished.

Once freed on the Via Palazzo (and Municipality) side, the Tower will become 'its own museum' in the sense that its walls are documents enough.

And so, like a book, the centuries-old monument will reveal itself and its history, the history of the city, to visitors.

An external wood and steel stairway, modelled on medieval examples but designed as a foot way, continues in the interior up to the top level and the clock. Here a computerized plant will 'speak' about that distant past which this up-to-date city was founded on.

The San Giuliano Park

A open space where city dwellers meet friend sand watch the passers-by, the San Giuliano Park is seventy-four hectares of verdant landscape stretching from the mainland to the shores of the lago on.

The park offers a new horizon, a juxtaposition of apparently incongruous factors - the thousand islands of the lagoon, the timeless stones of Venice on the skyline, and the sprawling apartment blocks and factories of the modern city.

The green sward has been replanted with meadows and trees and the birds can return and settle on the stretches of water.

True enough, it is a landscaped version of nature, selected, controlled and tended by man, in what was once an abandoned lot.

Now it is an immense park and breath of fresh air and, more than anything, a new centre of attraction for people living in Venice who come over to explore it, or to just drop in a while.

Four variously shaped totems indicate the way to the four gateways: a rhinoceros, dinosaur, an octopus and a seagull.

Once through the gates, the winding path sinvite one and all to take their time and enjoy a restful a stroll, to feast the eyes on the green swathe, on the wide-open spaces and the lagoon, and to relish unusual views of familiar places that seem altered in the light from this new perspective.

Summer makes the park more inviting than ever and full of promise because it offers many further ways of enjoying the park,so it resembles a great new piazza for the city - green piazza where you can sunbathe, meet friends, stroll, skate, go cycling, or watch the shows in the new covered area.

This park at the edge of the lagoon - that ever changing and transitory environment suspended between sea and city - far from being a marginal area, is fast becoming the hub of a multiform city.

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