Parco del Mincio

Navigating the Mincio Valleys and upper lake

• Trail Conditions: Boat
• Interest: Flora, Wildlife

• Departure: Grazie di Curtatone, Rivalta sul Mincio, Ponte dei Mulini a Mantova
• Arrival: Grazie di Curtatone, Rivalta sul Mincio, Ponte dei Mulini
• Duration: 1 to 2 hours

Expert boatmen offer boat trips on the Mincio River as a tourist and learning opportunity. Trips take place among the towns of Mantua, Grazie di Curtatone and Rivalta, where the Mincio Valleys Nature Reserve is situated. The Reserve is a wetland of exceptional beauty, and constitutes the heart of Mincio Park. Visitors embark in Grazie and navigate among groves of reeds and a labyrinth of canals intersecting the river. A thick vegetation grows on the wetland, including water lilies and rose mallows; purple and grey herons, grebes, the rare bittern, and marsh harriers fly and nest in the place. Near Angeli, a small fishers' village, the river flows again in one single branch and broadens out, forming the first and largest of the three lakes surrounding Mantua: Lago Superiore (upper lake), where lotus flowers spectacularly blossom in the summer. The boat returns to Grazie di Curtatone following other waterways; otherwise it is possible to disembark in Mantua at Ponte dei Mulini (near the railway station).