Noale Geography

The town stands on the flat alluvial plain of the central Veneto, at around 18 metres above sea level, in the province of Venice but roughly equidistant from Venice, Padua and Treviso -- none of them more than about 25 kilometres away.

It lies on the Marzenego, a small river that rises from springs in the resurgence belt to the north-west near Resana and runs east toward the lagoon at Mestre.

That resurgence line is the defining feature of this part of the plain: where the coarse gravels of the upper plain give way to finer sediments, groundwater is forced to the surface, producing a band of springs, clear spring-fed streams and historically marshy ground. The water around the Rocca is part of that system.

The surrounding country is intensively farmed, flat and criss-crossed with drainage channels, with the villa landscape of the Riviera del Brenta and the Mirano countryside to the south and the Treviso plain to the north.

There is no relief of any kind: on a clear day the Dolomites are visible on the northern horizon, which is the only vertical thing in the view.