Stra

Province: Venice · Region: Veneto · Population: 7,566 · Postal code: 30039

The name comes from the road: strata, the paved way the Romans had laid from Padua to Altinum and Aquileia, which passed through here. The main settlement, though, was called Fossolovara throughout the Middle Ages and beyond — the ditch of the wolves, or of the lovi, the marsh plants. The municipal boundaries are still crooked because they follow the old course of the Brenta, diverted in 1857.

Along the Naviglio stand the villas of the Venetian nobility, and the greatest is Villa Pisani, eighteenth-century, frescoed by Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo. On 14 June 1934, inside that villa, Mussolini and Hitler met for the first time.

What's around

Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.