Page 15 - Caorle Journal Giugno 2023

Scoperte Incantevoli | 15

LA BRUSSA OASIS: THE BEAUTY OF NATURE it still preserves its unspoilt features and is still dominated by nature.
Today, La Brussa oasis, seen from above, seems drawn with pencil and
ALL AROUND YOU ruler, accurately squared by human geometry. An abstract painting by
Caorle is a territory full of hidden places and enchanting discoveries, Mondrian but with a palette that takes its colours from nature and ranges
to be explored and discovered yet. La Brussa is precisely one of them, a from green to brown. To the south, a strong sand-coloured brushstroke,
peaceful oasis between Caorle and Bibione, stretching between the Nic- a comma. A sigh between land and sea.
esolo and Lovi canals. The name Brussa also refers to the entire area of
the valleys and, in particular, to the beach of Vallevecchia.
La Brussa is an oasis in a broad sense, since it is a quiet area that pre-
serves different characteristics from the surrounding zones.
At the same time, with respect to the original meaning of the term, it
overturns its logic: in fact, it is not a place where water is found in the
middle of the desert, but rather a place where land is found in the mid-
dle of water. The territory is bordered to the west by the Alberoni and
Nicesolo canals, to the east by the Lovi canal and to the south by the
Adriatic Sea. There are no bridges for crossing the canals, and there is
just one access, one road that leads to the beach. The geography of this
place is peculiar, since it subverts our urban logic; even the reference
points are totally unique: dunes and pinewoods, salt marshes and val-
leys, mudf lats and reed beds. The fauna native to the place is familiar
with marine waters, lagoons and inland waterways: here you can admire
purple herons and mallards. Moreover, in these areas, it is also possible
to find particular plants including Venetian glasswort, sea lavender,
European feather grass and many varieties of orchids. An oasis in itself,
where human settlements appeared only in the last century: today, about
one hundred people live in these areas are still very tied to peasant tra-
ditions. Farming was taken up only after the reclamation works in the
1920s, and the area is now almost entirely devoted to agriculture. After
all, if Daniel Defoe had seen these places, he would have surely sent his
Robinson here. Today, almost three centuries after his shipwreck on
the desert island, even La Brussa has changed and manifests itself in a
completely different way, since many hectares have been turned into
agricultural fields. Yet it still preserves some connotations of Crusoe’s
island, in fact it is the place where you can escape from modernity, as