It isn’t very common that I would come upon a European UNESCO World Heritage site that isn’t a church or something related. The city of Palmanova is a very well preserved fortified Venetian city. Much of the walls of the city have been preserved or at least restored. The city was established in the year 1593 and was planned to be a well planned and elegantly designed city. Utopia might be another word for it. The fortress was designed as a nine pointed star which obviously can’t be seen from ground level, but photos of the city’s layout are displayed in various signs around the city. There is a moat around the city as well and I thought that it might be a nice activity to walk around the entire city. After all, I don’t think I can claim to have ever walked around an entire city before.

The moat is obviously meant to deter invaders from attacking the city, it not unlike a castle in this regard. The city is accessible via three large gates. I started walking at the Porta Aquileia, this is the one which faces Aquileia. I walked counter clockwise from the gate, not knowing how far I would be walking. The weather was pleasant and great for walking. It looks like people do walk here as I can see from the worn trails to follow here. Actually, there is hardly any chance of getting lost here since this just goes all around the entire city. The moat here looks like it has seen better days. I don’t know how much water this used to have but I suspect that it used to hold more water. After all, it won’t be much of a challenge if enemies were to simply wade through a shallow moat.

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