Monte Venda
| Monte Venda | ||
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| height | 601 m slm | |
| location | Veneto , Italy | |
| Mountains | Euganean Hills | |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 18 '42 " N , 11 ° 40' 15" E | |
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| rock | Trachyte | |
At 601 m, Monte Venda is the highest point of the Euganean Hills in the Venetian province of Padua . It is located in the natural park of these hills in the territory of the four municipalities Galzignano Terme , Teolo , Vò and Cinto Euganeo .
Geology and landscape
At the foot of Monte Venda there are clayey sedimentary rocks that are around 40 to 45 million years old and can be attributed to the Eocene . The conical hill itself, like all elevations in this area, is of volcanic origin and consists of trachyte .
Within the unspoiled natural landscape on the slopes of Monte Venda, several vegetation zones can be made out due to the different microclimate. While oak, ash, hornbeam and macchia bushes predominate on the dry, sunny south side, the more humid north side is characterized by extensive chestnut forests; some of them with bizarrely shaped trunks are centuries old and are called maronari . In the winter months with higher rainfall there is also a small lake surrounded by black poplars and bog birches.
Infrastructure
On the summit and in the mountain there are military installations from the 1950s that have not been used since 1998. These are underground bunker systems in which the command facilities of NATO and the Italian Air Force were housed, namely the 1st Regional Operations Center (1st ROC), which is responsible for airspace control and the operational management of task forces in northern Italy (from 1976 also in central Italy) was. Similar facilities were located in Monte Cavo near Rome (2nd ROC, until 1976) and at Martina Franca in Apulia (3rd ROC). Since then, the successor organization has been at Poggio Renatico .
In September 2005, the Italian left- wing democrats submitted a parliamentary question to four ministries with the aim of dismantling the asbestos-contaminated facilities and investigating 20 deaths and damage to the health of the rest of those affected that are alleged to be related to this contamination. The responses from 2006 to take care of this with the necessary intensity have not yet led to the required dismantling (as of 2009).
At the same time the Monte Venda is home to the 100 m highest RAI - broadcast tower in the region of Veneto on a whole and parts of Friuli , the Trentino and the provinces of Brescia , Mantua and Ferrara has extensive reach, the transmitter Monte Venda .
A second, 60 m high transmission tower was built in 2004 on behalf of the Italian Air Force, despite protests from residents of the municipality of Teolo, as a radio bridge that can be used for military transmitters.
The access road from Castelnuovo to the transmitter is closed to the public.
The ascent on foot begins at the Casa Marina hiking car park (information center of the regional park administration ) or at the Re del Venda restaurant (former farm estate, around 1500) in Sottovenda. From there, two circular hiking trails created by the regional park administration lead into the protected landscape of Monte Venda. The shorter, wide one, partly also designated as handicapped accessible, leads 5 km (2 hours) past the flank of the mountain, the longer Sentiero GC Lorenzoni (7 km, 4–5 hours ), named after a Padan astronomer of the 19th century . ) has difficult, sometimes steep and exposed sections and leads once around the whole mountain.
Former Benedictine Abbey Monastero degli Olivetani
Just below the summit lie - only accessible on foot as a detour from Sentiero del Monte Venda GC Lorenzoni - the ruins of a hermitage built around 1100 by a hermit named Adam, which was taken over by Padua's Benedictine abbey of Santa Giustina in 1207 and converted into a larger monastery . At the same time a church dedicated to John the Baptist was built.
Around 1300 the Bishop of Padua transferred the monastery to the Olivetans under the protection of the Padan noble Carraresi family . The again enlarged abbey remained in their possession until 1771, when the Republic of Venice gave it up prematurely before the Napoleonic conquest and secularization of all the monasteries in the region. After that, the complex fell into disrepair until the regional park administration began its restoration and connection to the park's network of hiking trails.
The remote ruins of the monastery church and cloister building are also a vantage point with a view of Monte Rua with its Camaldolese hermitage and a wide panorama of the Po Valley .
