Jesolo

Among the most celebrated Italian beach resorts, Jesolo enchants the visitors also with beautiful landscapes, the hospitality of the people, the great cuisine and the high-quality wines. The city, 11 miles from Venice and 40 from Croatia, can offer a fine, peaceful countryside hinterland and the mountains little farther away. Its tourist docks, located at the mouth of the Sile river, can host hundreds of yachts and are among the best of the Adriatic Coast. The lagoons are a fishing paradise, inhabited by rare, valuable sealife.

The history of Jesolo can be summed up in four periods corresponding to the names that the place had in the course of time: Equilium, Jesolo, Cavazuccherina and finally again Jesolo. The ancient roman Equilium at the time of the barbaric invasions was a shelter for the inhabitants of Oderzo, in escape from the devastations capacities from Visigoti, Unni, Ostrogoti, Goti and Longobardi. Between the 6th and 7th century AD, as a result of the destruction of Padova and Oderzo, there was a massive migration towards the islands of Melidissa and Equilio, where the two cities Eraclea and Jesolo rose, protected from the destructions thanks to their geographic position.

Very soon Jesolo and Eraclea strated to fight each other, until in 808 both were destroyed by the Franks: by that time their lagoons had been filled with debris and terrain, and could be reached from the mainland. A slow decline began, until in 1466 also the episcopal see was removed. The glorious Jesolo was reduced to a land of malaric swamps.

A slow revival started in the 16th century when a canal was excavated from Jesolo inland towards northeast, thanks to Alvise Zuccherini, from whom the place was named Cavazuccherina. During the first world war Cavazuccherina, at the center of the war operations, was nearly totally destroyed. In 1930 the name of Jesolo was resumed, and an evergrowing miracle transformed the city in the second European beach resort of the time. The first bathing establishments became famous: the Bagni, Hotel Marina, Vidi, Bagni Miramare, the Centrale.