This is one of the largest urban parks in Europe, where the ecosystem has come back to life. San Giuliano Park was established exactly twenty years ago, reclaiming an area once destined for waste and toxins. If you follow the trails, you’ll find picnic areas, small sports facilities, a basketball court, and a skating rink, along with bars and large grassy lawns where city youth and families gather. Then you reach the edge of the lagoon, and it’s a spectacle. The park was inaugurated in 2004. Designed by Antonio Di Mambro and associates, the park spans 74 hectares and is dotted with vegetation: red maples, Siberian elms, ash trees, oaks, and white hornbeams. There’s an educational trail of the trees of San Giuliano; you can request the brochure at the information kiosk, and informative signs everywhere tell the story of the plant world that has revitalized this place.

Two artificial ponds, surrounded by marsh reeds, create an ideal habitat for various bird species. Where the Osellino, a channel of the Marzenego River, meets the park, you’ll find royal seagulls, cormorants, little egrets, and gray herons gathering. And where the lagoon begins, a network of mudflats, where you might spot the marsh harrier.

In San Giuliano Park, you can also admire two sculptures by Toni Benetton: “The Great Column,” presented at the Venice Art Biennale in 1986, near the Infopoint, is a tall iron tower; “The Souls,” on top of the hill, is composed of various strips of cast iron. The park is also the setting for many concerts and cultural events, which we won’t fail to point out to you.