Natural feature
Canale delle Moline
Narrow medieval waterway once lined by watermills, glimpsed today through a small window between old brick facades.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Canale delle Moline in Bologna follows the narrow channel's working past, when fifteen watermills once lined its banks grinding grain and powering the city's silk trade through the late 1500s. It traces how, off the clock, generations of Bolognese still gathered here to wash and swim despite official bans, even as a chapel nearby held the bodies of those the water claimed. Look down through the small window in the brick and picture a forbidden swimming hole hiding behind ordinary front doors.
This audio guide was created using AI.