Discover Ponte San Nicolò: Villas, Churches and Cycle Route

Ponte San Nicolò offers a multifaceted view of cycle routes, architecture and art. The circular cycle route “From Padua to the southern lagoon of Venice, along the Roncajette Canal and the Pontelongo Canal” leads to Ponte San Nicolò. There are also Villa Da Rio, Villa Crescente, the Chiesa di Roncajette, the Ponte San Nicolò bridge and works of art in Roncajette. This gives you a range extending from a rural resting place to sacred and civil architectural history.

Cycle route and rural stop

Along the cycle route, a stop is possible at Isola dell’Abbà, a charming rural hamlet in Ponte San Nicolò. The hamlet offers a different accent from the villas, churches and bridges at the following stops.

Villas between manor house and castle motif

Villa Da Rio is a 16th-century manor house villa with an attached chapel. Villa Da Rio also includes a rural building and a 16th-century dovecote. The historic character of the place emerges here from the interplay between the manor house, chapel and the two associated buildings.

Villa Crescente was built at the beginning of the 20th century on the model of medieval castles. Its attic features paintings and frieze decorations. The park of Villa Crescente is intended for public use. This place therefore forms a contrast with Villa Da Rio: here, the castle motif, attic decoration and intended public park shape the experience.

Roncajette: church, art and bridges

The origins of the Chiesa di Roncajette are traced back to around 1130; it acquired its present form during a redesign in the 18th century. The church preserves an early-15th-century polyptych attributed to the Maestro di Roncajette. The Polittico di Roncajette is a wooden polyptych; in 1998 it was restored and placed in the sacristy. If you would like to consider sacred architecture and a specific work of art together, the Chiesa di Roncajette offers a particularly rich point of reference.

The Ponte San Nicolò bridge also bears a clear date: inaugurated in 1913, the bridge is a single-span steel bridge and the present-day connection between the two banks of Ponte San Nicolò. Parts of the mills of Casa Turcato can still be seen beneath it. In this way, an existing bridge structure and visible remains of the mills come together in one place.

In the outer area of the Roncaglia-Rio cemetery stand monumental Corten steel sculptures entitled “I Guardiani della Dormiente” by Antonio Ievolella. Roncajette also has a visible steel pedestrian suspension bridge, built at the beginning of the 20th century and now completely abandoned.

Practical information

The Chiesa del Crocifisso is currently not open to visitors. For realistic day planning, it should therefore not be included as an accessible interior visit.

More destinations

More destinations for your trip to Italy: Saletto, Lissaro, Galzignano Terme, Pozzonovo, Legnaro, Tribano, Abano Terme, Pontelongo

To the main travel overview: Padua.