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Published: September 16th 2019
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Palmanova Satellite Photo: Not everyone likes a utopia?
"Despite the pristine conditions and elegant layout of the new city, no one chose to move there, and by 1622 Venice was forced to pardon criminals and offer them free building lots and materials if they would agree to settle the town." NOTE: photos have been down on Travelblog, but it's been fixed, so if you couldn't see the photos in previous blogs, you can now!
We were encouraged by the woman at the tourist office to buy a couple of two day $25 tourist passes, good for city buses, museums, and a boat ride to the town of Grado, where we could get a bus to two other towns we wanted to visit (Aquileia and Palmanova) We decided not to try to catch the 8:30 am boat, but to take the next one at 1:00 pm, thinking we would have enough time to visit at least one of the towns and catch the last boat back at 6:30.
We were wrong.
We decided to visit a few museums while waiting for the boat, and started out by trying to see the synagogue, one of the largest in Italy. We got there and found that there were no tours on Thursdays. We headed to the Museum of the Sea, using the map from the tourist office, only to find it had moved across town. That left a very pathetic aquarium, which houses fish, snakes and a collection of
souvenirs made from shells.
The boat ride was pleasant, and we found the bus station after a long walk along a canal. Unfortunately, the next bus was in an hour, and wasn't included in our tourist pass. After some lively "discussion", Bill and I decided to skip the first town (with Roman ruins) and take the bus directly to the next town (shaped like a star). We walked to the beach while we waited for the bus, and realized that the town was filled with Austrians! I think it's one of the closest points of access to the sea for Austrians...sort of the Puerto Penasco of the Adriatic! It belonged to Austria from 1815 to 1917.
The bus turned out to be a plush double decker, from which we were able to see the Roman ruins as we passed. Once we arrived in Palmanova, the star-shaped town, we walked to the center, were underwhelmed (it's coolest seen from the sky), found no place open at 5:00 for dinner, had a drink and bad food at an outdoor cafe, and rushed to catch the 6:22 train back to Trieste. There was no train for an hour...instead there was a
bus to the next big city which connected to a train.. . I went for a walk, and Bill got attacked by a dozen mosquitoes while I was gone. We would have been better off on the bus....We got home around 9:00, and crawled into bed....
More on Palmanova:
The town is an example of
star fort of the Late Renaissance, built up by the
Venetian Republic in 1593. Using all the latest military innovations of the 16th century, this small town was a fortress in the shape of a nine-pointed star, designed by
Vincenzo Scamozzi. Between the points of the star, ramparts protruded so that the points could defend each other. A moat surrounded the town, and three large, guarded gates allowed entry. The construction of the first circle, with a total circumference of 7 kilometres (4 mi), took 30 years.
American professor
Edward Wallace Muir Jr. said on Palmanova: "The humanist theorists of the ideal city designed numerous planned cities that look intriguing on paper but were not especially successful as livable spaces. Along the northeastern frontier of their mainland empire, the Venetians began to build in 1593 the best example of a Renaissance planned town: Palmanova, a fortress city designed
to defend against attacks from the Ottomans in Bosnia. Built ex nihilo according to humanist and military specifications, Palmanova was supposed to be inhabited by self-sustaining merchants, craftsmen, and farmers. However, despite the pristine conditions and elegant layout of the new city, no one chose to move there, and by 1622 Venice was forced to pardon criminals and offer them free building lots and materials if they would agree to settle the town." wikipedia
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