Onboard the Burchiello amongst the Brenta Villas

“Riviera del Brenta is where wealthy aristocracts used to spend their holidays”, says Stefano Piccolo, general manager  of ‘Il Burchiello’ mini cruises, “they left Venice on board of traditional boats called Burchiello and sailed along the Brenta Canal; those vessels propelled by wind or manpower travelled from St. Mark’s through the lagoon and to Fusina where they were pulled by horses up until Padua.

“To facilitate navigation”, explains Stefano, “they built the Conche di Navigazione, floodgates, real water lifts that connected watercourses of different heights and allowed boats to go up or down the watercourse. The Riviera del Brenta was the fashionable canal, a place of delight and an ideal extension of the Grand Canal of Venice, where more than seventy luxurious villas flourished.

The Venetian nobility transferred to the Burchiello the elegance, refinement and luxury typical of the city of Venice. The Burchiello was a typical Venetian boat for transporting wealthy passengers, equipped with a large wooden cabin, with four balconies, finely worked and decorated with golden stuccoes and mirrors. The journey was fascinating and amusing; in the slow progress between the villas and the weeping willows, ladies and cicisbe, nobles and adventurers, comedians and artists animated the life on board making the river journey picturesque and pleasant.

“The Burchiello”, concludes Stefano, “became one with the Riviera del Brenta; frequented and used over the centuries by important people, poets, painters and musicians who have described and portrayed it in their works, the Burchiello became the symbol of the epic of the civilization of the Villas, mentioned and represented in countless works of art. And today, as then, every year from March to October, the Burchiello sails from Padua to Venice, and vice versa, stopping in the most important and famous Venetian Villas for the internal tour and a large group of boats takes thousands of people to visit the ancient Villas of the fantastic Riviera del Brenta.”