Dockyard Museum in Boretto, Emilia Romagna
Museum dedicated to the"Great River" - Museum on the Po River
Visiting a museum is like walking through the pages of a great illustrated book.
In the case of the Po River Museum, the illustrations are tangible objects such as boats, anchors, signals, winches, rudders, Jacob’s ladders, megaphones, hydraulic models, engines, pumps, canoes, and period motorboats.
Listing all the period paraphernalia, from nails to couplings, would be an impossible task.
As you enter the museum, you are immediately faced with the view of the Great River itself, as both the landscape and the main player in this story.
Under the portico, there are riverboats, a small hunting boat armed with a mounted rifle, and a wheel-boat for land reclaiming operations. The room dedicated to Chiezzi contains records of the great dockyard tradition that has characterised the town of Boretto.
In the second room there are collections of technical documentation related to the 650 km course of the river, with hydraulic models from the Po River Magistrate. The navigation room gives information on the dredgers and contains objects that give an idea of what living and working was like aboard the great boats that once used to dredge the riverbeds and build river defences. The fourth room illustrates what happens in the deep riverbed, in the world of sand, silt, and archaeology.
In the long “Hall of the Genius”, are the collected machines and materials related to the main working areas of the river, from foundries to forges, and from metalwork to wood carpentry.
The visit inside the former storehouses ends with a workshop to provide students from schools with the opportunity to carry out manual-creative activities and to attend classes and courses run by specialist staff.
Address: Via Argine, 11
Telephone: 0522/337002
Entrance Charge: Euro 2.00
Reduced Charges: Euro 1.00
Opening Periods: June and Jul 2003: Sat 4.00-7.00 p.m.; Sun 10.00a.m.-12.00 and 3.30-7.00p.m.
Aug and Sept 2003: Sunday 10.00a.m.-12.00 and 3.30-7.00p.m.
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