Description
The Lago Superiore (Upper Lake) is the largest of the three lakes around Mantua, formed by the river Mincio: a wide expanse of water right by the city that in summer is covered in white and pink lotus flowers.
The lotus flowers are the best-known sight. They grow in large floating beds, with green leaves up to a metre across from which the flowers rise. They were brought here in 1921 by Maria Pellegreffi, a young natural sciences graduate from the University of Parma, who transplanted their rhizomes.
The lake is part of the Valli del Mincio nature reserve, a vast marshland protected since 1984 and recognised as a wetland of international importance for waterbirds. In the Mincio Park you can see herons, little egrets, white storks, kingfishers and grebes.
The Lago Superiore lies about three metres higher than the other two, the Lago di Mezzo and the Lago Inferiore. Separating them is the Ponte dei Mulini, the dam that created it.
It is not a natural lake, even though it looks like one. In the Bronze Age, around 1800 BC, there was already a lake along the Mincio, but today's lakes are a feat of engineering more than eight centuries old, commissioned by the commune to defend the city from floods and enemies.
The Bergamo engineer Alberto Pitentino completed it between 1188 and 1199. The dam held back the waters of the Mincio and turned an area of unhealthy marshes into a lake.
The drop between the lakes powered twelve mills, each dedicated to an apostle, which gave the bridge its name. Destroyed by bombing in 1944, it was rebuilt as an embankment; the twelve statues of the apostles that decorated the mills survived.
That drop is still put to use: since 2015 a hydroelectric plant has harnessed the three-metre fall to produce energy for about 800 households. There were once four lakes, but the fourth, the Paiolo, was drained in the mid-18th century, and Mantua went from island to peninsula.
The lotus flowers are the best-known sight. They grow in large floating beds, with green leaves up to a metre across from which the flowers rise. They were brought here in 1921 by Maria Pellegreffi, a young natural sciences graduate from the University of Parma, who transplanted their rhizomes.
The lake is part of the Valli del Mincio nature reserve, a vast marshland protected since 1984 and recognised as a wetland of international importance for waterbirds. In the Mincio Park you can see herons, little egrets, white storks, kingfishers and grebes.
The Lago Superiore lies about three metres higher than the other two, the Lago di Mezzo and the Lago Inferiore. Separating them is the Ponte dei Mulini, the dam that created it.
It is not a natural lake, even though it looks like one. In the Bronze Age, around 1800 BC, there was already a lake along the Mincio, but today's lakes are a feat of engineering more than eight centuries old, commissioned by the commune to defend the city from floods and enemies.
The Bergamo engineer Alberto Pitentino completed it between 1188 and 1199. The dam held back the waters of the Mincio and turned an area of unhealthy marshes into a lake.
The drop between the lakes powered twelve mills, each dedicated to an apostle, which gave the bridge its name. Destroyed by bombing in 1944, it was rebuilt as an embankment; the twelve statues of the apostles that decorated the mills survived.
That drop is still put to use: since 2015 a hydroelectric plant has harnessed the three-metre fall to produce energy for about 800 households. There were once four lakes, but the fourth, the Paiolo, was drained in the mid-18th century, and Mantua went from island to peninsula.