| Po Valley | |
 | |
Location  | |
| State | Italy |
|---|---|
| Surface | 47 820 km² |
| Inhabitants | 20.000.000 (estimate / 2007) |
There Po Valley (or Val Padana) is a geographical region ofNorthern Italy.
To know
Geographical notes
It is one of the largest plains in Europe and the largest in southern Europe. It is mainly included within the catchment area of the Po river delimited by the Italian Alps and Prealps to the north and west, by the northern Apennines to the south and the Upper Adriatic to the east, including parts of the regions Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Veneto is Friuli Venezia Giulia.
The Po Valley includes three areas with different characteristics: the high plain, the low plain and the springs. The adjectives "high" and "low" refer to altitude and not latitude.
Due to the poor ventilation of the Po Valley, especially the western one, industrialization and the high population density, the problem of smog and air pollution in general has grown a lot since the 1960s, pollution that does not only affect large cities or industrial areas but which is distributed to affect the entire macro-region.
When to go
The Po Valley has a humid temperate climate with very hot summers. The climate is characterized by a wide annual temperature range with average low temperatures in winter (-1º / 2 ° C) and high in summer. In the cold season, the minimum temperatures can be several degrees below zero at night, and sometimes remain negative or close to zero even in the central hours of the day.
Background
Thanks to fertility, the geographical proximity of foreign markets, the flat surface and the consequent easy connection between cities and the easier construction of infrastructures compared to the rest of the complex Italian territory, the Po Valley today enjoys a robust diversified economy thanks also to the good distribution of the population in different medium-large urban centers which constitute excellent productive, logistic and industrial reference pointsVerona, Padua, Brescia, Bergamo, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena is Bologna) immersed in the countryside with very high surrounding agricultural mechanization. Various agricultural and industrial areas are concentrated in the Po Valley, among the most important in the Italian economy.
Territories and tourist destinations
- Piedmontese Po Valley
- Lombard Po Valley
- Lower Po of Lombardy
- Emilian shore of the Po
- Po Valley of Emilia
- Valleys and shores of Comacchio
Po Valley: full screen map.Urban centers
How to get
By plane
- Turin airport
- Milan Malpensa Airport
- Milan Linate Airport
- Bergamo Orio al Serio Airport
- Verona Villafranca Airport
- Venice airport
- Bologna airport
- Parma airport
By car
Main road axes:
- A4 Serenissima Turin-Trieste motorway
- Autostrada del Sole Milan-Naples
On the train
Trenitalia national network.
How to get around
What see
The Po Valley and the surrounding mountains offer the highest number of sites in theUNESCO and included in the World Heritage Site around the world with 18 sites:
- Rock art of the Val Camonica (1979)
- Church and the Comenican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie and the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci a Milan (1980)
- Venice and its lagoon (1987)
- Crespi d'Adda (1995)
- Ferrara, city of the Renaissance and the Po Delta (1995)
- Early Christian monuments of Ravenna (1996)
- Savoy residences in Piedmont (1997)
- Botanical garden of Padua (1997)
- Modena: Cathedral, Civic Tower and Piazza Grande (1997)
- Archaeological Area and Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia (1998)
- City of Verona (2000)
- Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy (2003)
- Mantua is Sabbioneta (2008)
- The Rhaetian Railway in the Albula and Bernina (2008)
- Dolomites (2009)
- Places of power and lands of the Lombards (2011)
- Prehistoric pile dwellings in the Alps (2011)
- Vineyard landscapes of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (2014)
Itineraries
- Historic villages of the Po - The itinerary, from west to east or vice versa, leads to know some historic villages that rise near the "great river".
- Between wine and history (Oltrepò Pavese Orientale)
- Castles of Lomellina
- Rice road
- In the lands of Matilda - The itinerary runs through a large part of the territory that was, at the turn of the twelfth century, governed and lived by the great countess Matilde di Canossa.
- In the lands of the Gonzagas - An itinerary to discover what were the ancient capitals of the Gonzaga state.
- The Road of the Castles (Mantua) - Allows you to visit the main castles in the area.
- Paths of Lombardy - 12 itineraries to discover art, nature and history.
- Via Carolingia - European itinerary that crosses the places traveled by the court of Charlemagne between the 8th and 9th centuries to travel from Aachen to Rome, where Pope Leo III crowned the Carolingian sovereign emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas night in the 19th century.
- Morainic hills of Lake Garda - On the first corrugations of the Po plain that becomes a hill, where the great lake basin of the Lake Garda, the route touches towns and cities that were the domain of Gonzaga, Venice, Scaligero, and then became the scene of the bloody battles of the Risorgimento that were the prelude to the unification of Italy. To the tourist, historical and naturalistic importance the area combines an oenological interest as an area of production of wines from the hills, tokai, merlot and claret.
What to do
At the table
- Casoncelli or Bergamo casonsei
- Malfatti and polenta and Brescia risqué
- Great boiled meat from Cremona
- Raspadüra from Lodi
- cassoeula
- Risotto with Monza luganega
- Saffron risotto
- Goose salami from Pavia
- Baccalà alla vicentina and radicchio alla griiglia
- Fried Parma cake (called fried dumpling in the rest of Emilia)
- Piadina in Romagna
- Tigelle in Modena
- Tortellini of Modena
- Pisarei and fasö from Piacenza
- Erbazzone of Reggio Emilia
- Salama da sugo from Ferrara
