page_title: Olona
section_title: The detour to Milan
hierarchical_section_title: Olona / Physical geography / The detour to Milan
caption_attribution_description: English: Milano, darsena: the oriental section, only open to navigation, join the Naviglio Grande with the naviglio Pavese. Italiano: Milano, darsena: il bacino orientale, l'unico aperto alla navigazione, congiunge il Naviglio Grande e quello Pavese. All'estremità vi è lo scolmatore.
context_page_description: The Olona is an Italian river belonging to the Po Basin, 71 kilometres long, that runs through the Province of Varese and Metropolitan City of Milan whose course is developed entirely in Lombardy.
  The river born at 548 m s.l.m. in the Fornaci della Riana locality at the Rasa of Varese, at the Sacro Monte di Varese, within the Campo dei Fiori regional park. After crossing the Valle Olona and crossing the Alto Milanese, the Olona reaches Rho where it pours part of its water into the Canale Scolmatore Nord Ovest. After passing Pero, the river enters in Milan, where, at the exit of its underground route, it flows into the Lambro Meridionale, that flows into the Lambro at Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, in the quartier of San Cristoforo ending its course. Along the way, the water system formed by the Olona and the Lambro Meridionale crosses or laps 45 towns receiving the water of 19 tributaries.
  The Olona is known for the waterfalls and caves of Valganna and for having been one of the most polluted rivers in Italy. The valley carved by the river, thanks to the system of water wheels that exploited the driving force originated by the water, was one of the cradles of Italian industrialization.
context_section_description: Until ancient Roman times, at La Maddalena, today's quartier of Milan, the Olona was diverted towards the city with the aim of bringing water to it: in ancient Roman times it flowed into the moat of the republican defensive walls of the city of Mediolanum then, from the 12th century, in the defensive moat around the medieval walls and later (1603) in the Darsena of Porta Ticinese.
  In particular Olona river, during the Middle Ages, flowed into the moat of medieval defensive walls of the city in correspondence of the modern Piazza della Resistenza Partigiana, while in ancient Roman times it continued the city route reaching the modern Piazza Vetra, where it poured its water into the moat of Roman walls thanks to the homonymous canal, the Canale Vetra. The Cerchia dei Navigli then originated from the medieval moat of walls, while the two branches of the Roman moat became the Grande Sevese and the Piccolo Sevese, two canals still existing today in the Milan underground.
  The Milanese stretch of the Olona corresponds to the ancient natural beds of two streams, Bozzente and Pudiga. Before the deviation of the Olona towards Milan the Pudiga stream, after having lapped on the western side of the city, continued south following its natural bed, corresponding to what is now called Lambro Meridionale, which ended its course, like the ancient Pudiga, in the Lambro near Sant'Angelo Lodigiano. Originally, at the height of the inhabited center of Milan, the Pudiga made a wide bend towards the east, which led it to touch the city at the height of the modern Piazza Vetra, near the natural and ancient bed of the Nirone stream, and then bend towards the south following the bed of the modern Lambro Meridionale.
  Originally, on its hydrographic left, the Pudiga, in place of the Olona, received the Bozzente stream. The Bozzente originally had in fact an autonomous natural bed that led him to collect the water of the Lura stream and the Merlata stream and then flow into the Pudiga. As already mentioned, it was the ancient Romans who diverted the Olona to Lucernate, a quartier of Rho, in the bed of Bozzente and then to the Pudiga riverbed. The Milanese stretch of the Olona therefore corresponds to the ancient natural beds of Bozzente and Pudiga. The new artificial riverbed of the Olona was then excavated from scratch only for a short distance: having reached the modern Lucernate at the Bozzente stream, the designers widened their bed to accommodate a greater water flow.
  As the final destination of the new Olona route, the moat of Milan's Roman walls was chosen, where it poured its water into the Canale Vetra (name given by the ancient Romans to the final stretch of the Nirone natural bed) at the height of the modern and homonymous piazza: to achieve this goal, the ancient Romans extended and enlarged the Vetra canal towards the aforementioned Pudiga natural meander so as to also collect the Olona water. With the deviation of the Olona towards the wall of the city, the water continuity of the ancient bed of the Pudiga disappeared, whose southern section (the future "Lambro Meridionale") was intercepted remaining devoid of clean water, which came from the north, thus becoming in a sewer collector.
  Until 1704 the river had only one terminal arm, while on a map of 1722 it is reported that the Olona forked into two almost parallel branches that met before entering Darsena of Milan: the Olona Nuova (en. "New Olona"), that is the northern one that later will be called roggia Molinara, and the Olona Vecchia (en. "Old Olona"), that it was the southern one. The Molinara canal was then buried at the end of the 19th century before the river was channeled. The so-called "Brera island", which was located between the present-day Via George Washington and Via Vincenzo Foppa, had a longer life. Originated from another fork in the river, it took its name from the homonymous farmhouse that once stood there. It is still marked in a paper from 1925. In this context, in 1894, Canottieri Olona was founded, a multi-sports club in Milan, winner of an Italian men's water 
caption: The south-western basin of the Darsena of Milan, which connects the Naviglio Grande with the Pavese one (their entrances into the Darsena can be seen on the right: in the foreground is that of the Naviglio Grande, in the background the entrance to the Naviglio Pavese) . At the bottom, frontally, one recognizes the entrance of the Cavo Ticinello, which has the function of a drainage channel of the Darsena.  For centuries the Darsena di Porta Ticinese was the mouth of the Olona
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