Idroscalo Torino

45°02'45"N 007°41'06"E

runway: n/a - n/a - water

Seaplane base Turin (It: Idroscalo Torino) was a floatplane aerodrome on the river Po in Turin, 520 kilometers northwest of Rome.
The airfield opened on 1 April 1926 as the begin and end point of the route Turin - Trieste - Turin. The service was run by the SISA (Società Italiana Servizi Aerei, or Italian Air Services Company), founded by the Trieste brothers Cosulich. It became the first civilian airline in the country. The route flew from Turin via Pavia, Piacenza and Venice to Trieste.
For a round trip, the ticket price was 300-375 Lire, roughly corresponding to a high average salary period. Remarkably for its time, the route had not a single serious accident during its first year of operation. The service continued until 1934 when SISA was absorbed by the SAM (Società Aerea Mediterranea).


Idroscalo of Turin - Postcard view from Isabella Bridge (Ponte Isabella) sometime before 1934 (via Wikipedia)


Aerial reconnaissance photo of Turin in 1942/1942, showing the Idroscalo of Turin on the left bank of the river Po, just north of Ponte Isabella (Google Earth)

Its hangar on the Po River was abandoned but later used as a restaurant named L'Idrovolante (The Flying Boat). In the 1950s the building was suddenly ordered to be demolished by the local government. Motivation for the move was that the building was alledgedly posing a hazard to shipping on the Po River. As a result, nothing remains of the former aerodrome, except for a commemoratieve plaque on the banks of the Po River.


Loosely translated: "To those who, in a single engined six seater seaplane, departed on I-IV-MCMXXVI on the maiden flight of the first Italian air route Turin-Pavia-Venice-Trieste. Demolished for reasons of transit in the river, the old seaplane base remains in our memories as the birthplace of Italian civil aviation companies."
(RonaldV, August 2017)