Mira is not one town but three, and it took three governments to convince them. Gambarare, Mira and Oriago stood on the two banks of the Naviglio del Brenta, and the canal was a real border: to the north you were in the mainland dominions and the diocese of Treviso, to the south in the Dogado and the Patriarchate of Venice. In 1797 the Venetian provisional government joined two of them, and a few months later the Austrians put them back as they were; Napoleon tried again, and from 1816 the Austrians separated them once more. In the end it was the three town councils that asked the king for it: the decree is of 1868, and the arms carry three interlaced laurel crowns. The town hall stands at Mira Taglio, which is none of the three.
Along that canal the Venetian patricians went out to their summer villas by burchiello, and the comune holds villas of the first rank: the Malcontenta — villa Foscari, a Palladian masterpiece and a UNESCO site — and villa Widmann with its baroque parties. The historic boat still runs the Venice-Padua route, lock by lock. But a third of the territory is not land: it is barene, islets and channels facing the lagoon. The other soul is artisan: the Riviera is the luxury footwear district that produces for the great fashion houses of the world. Between a bicycle ride on the embankment and a fish osteria, Venice stays twenty minutes away — without its prices.
Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo in Bosco · Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta · Chiesa di Santa Maria Maddalena and 3 more
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Next up: Saint Nicholas, patron of the Brenta Riviera of Venetian villas, Sunday 6 December
Nearest airport: Venezia Marco Polo, 19 km away
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📅 Every year, on 6 December
Mira celebrates Saint Nicholas on 6 December; its territory, along the Brenta Canal halfway between Padua and Venice, holds 92 fine villas, palaces and casini built by the Venetian nobility between the 15th and 19th centuries, including the famous Palladian villa «la Malcontenta».
Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo in Bosco The church of Bosco Grande in Mira, rebuilt in the twentieth century beside its sixteenth-century bell tower. Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta The sanctuary of the Madonna Mora at Borbiago di Mira, with Andrea Briosco's statue and Diziani's great canvas Chiesa di Santa Maria Maddalena The parish church of Oriago, with a canvas attributed to Titian's brother and a bell tower with octagonal belf Duomo di San Giovanni Battista The late-Romanesque church of Gambarare, with a Callido organ and almost five centuries of priests chosen loca Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Mira, but an easy day trip away.
