Padua in the Veneto region

28 April 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  5 minutes

Prato della Valle, the famous square of Padua © Dan00nad

Prato della Valle, the famous square of Padua © Dan00nad

Padua (Italian: Padova) is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua’s population is 214,000. The city is sometimes included, with Venice (Italian: Venezia) and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having a population of c. 1,600,000. Padua stands on the Bacchiglione River, 40 km west of Venice and 29 km southeast of Vicenza. The Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain (Pianura Veneta). To the city’s south west lies the Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Shelley.   read more…

The four-masted steel barque Passat

23 April 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Tall ships, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Aconcagua

© Aconcagua

Passat is a German four-masted steel barque and one of the Flying P-Liners, the famous sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. The name “Passat” means trade wind in German. She is one of the last surviving windjammers.   read more…

The Russian sail training ship Kruzenshtern

1 March 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  5 minutes

Sail Amsterdam 2005 © Dirk van der Made

Sail Amsterdam 2005 © Dirk van der Made

The Kruzenshtern or Krusenstern is a four masted barque and tall ship that was built in 1926 at Geestemünde in Bremerhaven, Germany as the Padua (named after the Italian city). She was surrendered to the USSR in 1946 as war reparation and renamed after the early 19th century Baltic German explorer in Russian service, Adam Johann Krusenstern (1770–1846). She is now a Russian Navy sail training ship. Of the four remaining Flying P-Liners, the former Padua is the only one still in use, mainly for training purposes, with her home ports in Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) and Murmansk. After the Sedov, another former German ship, she is the largest traditional sailing vessel still in operation.   read more…

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