Idroscalo Sant'Anna, Urban park at Sant'Anna, Sesto Calende, Italy.
Idroscalo Sant'Anna is an urban park along the shoreline of Lake Maggiore in Sesto Calende. The grounds feature walking paths, cycling routes, and open green spaces with native trees and shrubs, with a restored hangar serving as exhibition space.
The Savoia-Marchetti seaplane company, founded in Sesto Calende in 1915, installed its base at Sant'Anna. In September 1920 Umberto Maddalena flew from here to Helsinki on an S.16, setting the record for the longest seaplane raid; in 1925 Francesco De Pinedo and Ernesto Campanelli covered 55,000 km to Melbourne, Tokyo and Rome on the S.16 Gennariello. Italo Balbo's S.55 crossed the Atlantic in 1930, 1931 and 1933. In the final years of the Second World War the Xª Flottiglia, loyal to the Italian Social Republic, ran a motor torpedo boat school here, bombed repeatedly by Allied aircraft.
The name references the water landing area and its aviation past. Today visitors can enter the hangar exhibition to learn about the flight heritage that once defined this location.
The park is accessible year-round and offers walking trails, picnic areas, and a multi-purpose hall for events. Visitors will find plenty of space for relaxing outdoor activities.
The entrance arch carries a restored eagle of the Regia Aeronautica, flanked by one of the two sentry boxes that survived dispersal. A few metres away stands the anti-aircraft bunker. Past the two hangars, where seaplanes and later explosive motorboats were assembled, the officers' building and the water tower covered in creepers are barely visible.
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