Villas and castles of the Euganean Riviera

The Battaglia Canal, completed in 1201, commences in Padova, in the ancient harbour called Bassanello, and runs straight to Battaglia Terme, carrying further on to Monselice. The Battaglia Riviera was the route preferred by the Venetian nobles and patricians to get to their Villas, built along the canal, and to their residences on Euganean Hills, like the Villa Barbarigo, its old boat moorings are still visible today.

The starting point is at the River Navigation Museum in Battaglia Terme. The landscape is undoubtedly wonderful: green vegetation and thich reed thickets. The Catajo Castel, a late-renaissance (1572) sumptuouos residence, magnificently frescoed by Giambattista Zelotti.

Here is Battaglia Terme, the old coastal village built on the convergence of numeroous watercourses linked among them by Locks. Then the journey continues thourgh the lock, a monumental hydraulic artefact which enables the descending of a 7-metre hight water slope and the docking at the Fluvial Navigation River, guarding the historical testimonies of a lost fluvial civilization.. The journery continues and on the right, on the top of St. Elena hill, the 16th century Villa Selvatico stands out.