Sile River Natural Park Site Features

What built form there is here is industrial and hydraulic: weirs, sluices and mill races that regulated the river for power and navigation, and the brick shells of the mills and tanneries that used them.

The Restera itself is infrastructure -- a level towpath engineered for hauling barges upstream, which is exactly why it makes such good walking and cycling now.

Near Casier, the cemetery of the burchi is the strangest thing on the river: a line of wooden cargo barges deliberately sunk when river trade ended, now half submerged and half overgrown.

The resurgence springs

The river's source west of Treviso, where water comes up out of flat ground rather than down from hills.

The Restera

The old towpath, flat and tree-shaded, running for kilometres along the bank.

The sunken barges

The burchi near Casier, abandoned in the river and slowly becoming part of it.

Winter birdlife

The spring water holds a near-constant temperature, so the wetlands stay open when the surrounding plain freezes.

The park runs roughly 95 km from the springs near Casacorba, west of Treviso, through the city itself and on toward the lagoon at Portegrandi. It is entirely flat, wooded along the banks and surrounded by farmland.

Within Treviso the river passes the southern edge of the city walls before continuing east.