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Around Comacchio : Sicily to Ukraine by camper van part 37

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• published: 10 Oct 2013
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SEE MY MOTORHOME GROUP ON FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/MotorhomesOnLine Lake Comacchio is situated very close to the Adriatic Sea and the road cuts between the two. It is a narrow stretch of land, not much more than 1km wide. Formerly a swamp, much of the land has been drained for agricultural use, nonetheless I think that there must be a problem here with mosquitoes during the late spring and early summer. Malaria was once a major problem but has now been eradicated. I discuss a little of the historical implications of malaria during the drive. Whilst filming of this I got bitten. It is an area popular with Italian tourists with many resorts along the coast. I visited Comacchio in 1993 with a lady friend and it was one of the wierdest places I have ever been to. We went there as I had seen a programme about eel fishing on the lake and to try the local speciality. We felt that everyone was staring at us as though we were the unwelcome strangers in town. Not only us, but others we talked to felt the same. The land here is so flat - who would believe that such a short time earlier I was in the mountains? After its early occupation by the Etruscans and the Gauls, when the site lay on the main stream of the River Po, Comacchio was annexed by Rome. Under Emperor Augustus, who ruled Rome from 27 BCE to 14 CE, a canal was dug to deepen its lagoon. Part of the original wetlands were drained and divided among villae rusticae. Comacchio enjoyed prosperity under the Goths and the Lombards, and became the seat of a Lombard duchy. It owed its fortunes to its salt pans and its strategic importance to its location: when the Lombard king Authari expanded the Lombard dominion at the expense of Byzantium, he took the fortress of Comacchio and cut off communication between Padua and Ravenna. When the Franks descended into northern Italy in 756, their king, Pepin the Short, included Comacchio in his famous donation of land to Pope Stephen II, a grant later confirmed by Pepin's son and successor, Charlemagne. In 854 Comacchio was sacked by their rivals in the salt trade, the Venetians, who laid it waste in 946. Saracen raiders burned the city in 876, but despite this Comacchio slowly recovered. The Holy See later acquired the city and presented it to the archbishopric of Ravenna. In the 13th century, Emperor Rudolph I conferred it on Obizzo IV d'Este of Ferrara. In 1508 it became Venetian, but in 1597 was claimed by Clement VIII as a vacant fief. In 1598 the Papal States again acquired Comacchio and retained it until 1866 when it became a part of the Kingdom of Italy. Since then, most of the swamp land has disappeared, leaving ground for the expansion of agriculture, and creating new zones for dwellings. Comacchio was once home to a factory for sugar refining, which closed in 1988. Comacchio and its seafront Lidi are a center for tourism. My channel on you tube : http://www.youtube.com/alanheath is very prolific. I have produced over 2,500 original films. My big interest in life is travel and history but I have also placed films on other subjects. For those that want to know more, I have groups on facebook related to motorhome travelling, history and packaging. Please feel free to ask questions in the public area or to comment on things you disagree with. Sometimes there are mistakes because I speak without preparation. If I see the mistakes myself, I make this clear in the text. Please also leave a star rating! I am very fortunate that I can spend a large part of my life travelling, thanks to the business I chose to run which allows me to do this. There are a number of films here on the packaging industry. This is because I am the publisher of Central and Eastern European Packaging -- http://www.ceepackaging.com - the international platform for the packaging industry in this region focusing on the latest innovations, trends, design, branding, legislation and environmental issues with in-depth profiles of major industry achievers. Most people may think packaging pretty boring but it possibly effects your life more than you really imagine! Central and Eastern European Packaging examines the packaging industry throughout this region, but in particular in the largest regional economies which are Russia, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Austria. That is not to say that the other countries are forgotten, they are not, but obviously there is less going on. However the fact that there are so many travel related films here is not from holidays but from business trips attending trade fairs around the region. Every packaging trade fair is a new excuse to make another film!