Our itinerary follows the flow of the river, that after Ponte di Piave, once a river port for rafts landing, begins to get deep and slow. In the bend of Zenson there was the last stop for the zattieri: there they bent the rafts together in many units and left them to the tide flow and to the strength of mules that used to pull them from the banks. In Zenson there was also a "passo barca" connecting this place to Salgareda. In the Osteria alla Bersagliera (The Infantrywoman Inn) of Romanziol, which lies right in front of the old road leading to the "boat-passage" of Zenson, there are some popular culture objects and several period photographs relating to the Piave, the gravel diggers and the riverboats in the port of Noventa di Piave. The "Piave Bassa" (Lower Piave) is by now a real water road; in fact it was ploughed until the period after the Second World War by burci (barges), burchielle (little barges), peate for goods carriage (i.e.: victuals, straw for cattle-breeding, bricks, tiles and gravel from the grave) and by small fishing-boats (i.e.: mascareta, sandalo, fagaroto), s'ciopon for duck hunting and barcarol for people transportation.

Only very few frail traces remain nowadays of a port once crowded with every kind of craft, including the caorline carrying fish from Caorle and the bragozzi loaded with vegetables from Chioggia. On the other hand there are still some elements referring to gravel extraction, such as the remains of a cement crusher in the Parco fluviale del Piave, and the little houses of the gravel diggers in Ca' Memo. These houses are lined up close to the riverbank thereby forming one long building people call "el treno" (the train).

Along the riverbanks we can also follow the recently restored paths (restere) from which men and animals used to pull crafts by long ropes. Proceeding along the banks, after passing a small island surrounded by marsh-reeds, we get to another important "boat-passage" connecting the village to Fossalta di Piave. There a naturalistic itinerary allows us to walk along the banks of San Marco. Nowadays it is a boats-bridge that assures the connection between the two banks.

We would like to remind that, especially in wartimes, ferrying was managed by women, witnesses of tragic events taking place on the waters of a river that has often been cause of death and destruction. Then we get in San Donà di Piave, centre of the drainage activities in Lower Piave. The hydraulic arrangements begun with la Serenissima, continued through the 19^th century with the mechanic reclamation of marshlands. But it was above all in the first half of the century that the reclamation of wide areas between the rivers Sile and Livenza was completed; estate divisions were brought out and agrarian land was made valuable. The landscape therefore underwent radical changes: the marsh and valley areas, where straw and reeds were plucked to make arelle, trellis and mats, were transformed into oat, wheat, clover or corn fields and vineyards. Settlements, almost absent till the 19^th century, began to differ according to their nature of economic or share-crop business.