Idroscalo di Pavia

It is not widely remembered today, but Italy was an important player in the development of long-distance air travel in the 1920s. In that era, seaplanes were preferred for transoceanic flight because if the aircraft couldn't fly, it could still float. That idea reassured nervous passengers.

In the mid 1920s, Societá Italiana Servizi Aerei (SISA, or Italian Air Services Company) established a route from Torino to Trieste. Pavia was an intermediate stop on that route, with seaplanes landing in the Ticino River. A hangar building, elevated above the flood level, and a ramp for winching the seaplanes inside opened on April 1, 1926.

Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator, himself was there to meet the first flight — with four passengers and several bags of mail — on the Torino to Trieste route.

After seaplane service ended, the Idroscalo became a storage and service building for tugboats and dredges until it was abandoned in 1981.