It's been a while... (Part 2)

Mr. Vidotto, owner of the "Casa del Bersaglieri" military museum in Jesolo, told me about some WW2 bunkers in Lido di Jesolo. These bunkers were part of a chain running from the southernmost point of the languet in front of the Laguna Veneta on which Lido di Jesolo is situated straight up to the estuary of the Piave river (at least that was what I gathered from the good Mr. Vidotto's somewhat heavily accented "German").

The bunkers were intended to prevent a landing of allied or even of Titos Partizan forces and therefore the system probably extended much further than the Piave river, at least up to Lignano Sabbiadoro on the languet which forms part of the Laguna di Marano to the northeast of Jesolo.. Unfortunately I was unable to prove this so far.

Mr. Vidotto told me the bunkers were clustered in groups of five along the coast line with two each forming the key points to the north in Cortellazzo and the lighthouse to on the tip of the languet to the south.

What came somewhat as a surprise to me was the fact one of those groups of bunkers was situated more or less right in front of the camping site we were camping in for almost a decade now. Of course this got me going instantly so it was only a matter of time till I found the outlines of one of these bunkers in the undergrowth.

Again a screenshot from Google Streetview shows more detail:

Despite beeing somewhat prone to harassment by mosquitoes I delved head first into what seemes to be a derelict park or the like. Lots of undergrowth, buzzing insects and waste anyway.

Three of the four bunkers I had found had machine gun emplacements on the top which leads me to the conclusion the other two (one of which I didn't find unfortunately) were some kind of command or medical aid post.

Below you see the good missus, seemingly not happy at all to be dragged away from the beach into the woods. Didn't occure to me at the time she could maybe have another idea of time well spent.

Not only was the wood full of waste but seemingly the bunkers had attracted more than their fair share of party people and those that were only out to deposit their junk anywhere.

Somewhat further into the woods we stumbled over a gate which led to a derelict house at the edge of the woods.

There it was we found the fourth of the bunkers...

... again full to the brim with waste. But on the pic below you can clearly see where the heavy bunker door was set into the wall.

a great vista over the plain was had from the machine gun emplacement.

The other place Mr. Vidotto had told me about was the "Antiche Mura di Jesolo" where some remains of the antique Jesolo as well as remnants from what we would call the Dark Ages, have been excavated.

Unfortunately the place was closed to the public (seems like you need to announce your visit to the officials), so I was only able to take some pics from outside the actual site.

Amidst the ruins there was also standing a single bunker again...

And to round things off, the only photos I took from our trip to Padua.
First a piece of 7th century cloth with typical ornations which was excavated somewhere in egypt:

And a piece of etruscan pottery adorned with what seems like an over abundance of svastikas.

Anyone who happens to make holidays somewhere around Venice I can only heartily encourage to also pay a visit to Padua and there especially to the Musei Civici Eremitani which harbour a lot of Etruscan and Roman finds from the area. Unfortunately most of the exhibits don't have an english plaque which means you either have to make do with deciphering what the italian description might mean or you simply marvel at the stuff on display, drawing your own conclusions.