History and nature at the Palù park.
The Palù park is an important natural area and one of the most ancient human settlements in the surroundings of Montagnana. It is a great starting place to reach the Isoletta, a golena partly followed by the old course of the Fratta river.
Walk past the town center and go west for a nice bike ride along ancient country roads. You will get to the Palù park, an important green area where the simple enchanting landscape meets the traces of the most ancient town settlement, dating back to the 4th-3d millennium b.C. Such residential areas were built along the river Adige, which crossed this territory until the devastating overflown in 589 A.D. which caused an instability and swamping so extensive its memory lasts in the local place names. Here there has always been water, and the land still shows signs of the recurrent floods, controlled only by the recovery over the centuries. You will walk on a overhead trail track: that is the Adige Padovano, an artificial embankment made in the Middle Age. It was designed to protect the territory of Montagnana from the floods of the river Fratta, as well as from the expansionist ambitions of the people from Verona, as it is on the border between the two provinces. The quiet will keep you company on your way to Rovenega, broken just by the the natural sounds of the countryside. The heart of Rovenega is its little 20th century church, built thanks to the will and devotion of its faithfuls. Surround yourself by nature again on the short loop locally called isoletta (little island), a meadow enclosed to make a small peninsula between a part of the old riverbed of the river Fratta and the surrounding land. You can now take the unpaved way Pizzon until you get back to the actual park where lake areas are next to wooded areas. This habitat is quite similar to the original one. Here important botanical species bloom, and many types of birds, amphibians, and mammals find shelter.
