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Tourism in Veneto

The city of Venice lies in the Veneto Region thus attracting thousands of tourists from all over the world every year. It is the jewel of tourism in Ialy and would have to be without a doubt one of the most fascinating cities in the world as it does not contain any cars and its traffic is on the water. However there are other wonderful cities not quite so famous but also fascinating to explore in the region of Veneto.

Travelling from Verona and going east through the charming upper Venetian plain, one comes to Soave, with its castle and circle of walls built by the Scaligeris (14th-15th century); Marostica, still surrounded by fourteenth century walls, where the annual chess game with living chessmen is played in the beautiful Piazza del Castello; Bassano del Grappa, with its medieval and Renaissance works of art.

Nearby lies Asolo, a town of Renaissance appearance with picturesque porticoed streets; Castelfranco Veneto, birthplace of Giorgione, with the especially interesting house-museum of the artist and beautiful sixteenth century buildings enclosed within medieval fortified walls; lastly, Cittadella, a typical example of a fortified medieval village.

Farther north lies Feltre, another fortified town of ancient appearance, with famous Renaissance buildings, and Vittorio Veneto, of environmental and artistic interest (an altarpiece by Titian inside the Duomo). Near the boundary with Friuli lies Portogruaro, with important examples of Gothic and Renaissance architecture.

There are interesting places to visit also on the lower plain: among others, Montagnana with its old town centre enclosed by walls (13th-14th century) and Gothic-Renaissance Duomo; Este with a wealth of Renaissance buildings and churches and Monselice overlooked by a rock (remains of a keep and walls). Reaching the Adriatic, one comes to Chioggia, a picturesque village on a lagoon, full of canals and narrow `calli'.

Ville Venete
All over the Venetian plain, but especially in the Provinces of Treviso, Padua, Vicenza and Venice, stand numerous remarkable artistic rural constructions, the "Ville Venete". Dates of construction of these villas range from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. There are approximately five thousand Ville Venete, of which 1,400 are declared of historical and monumental interest. Of greater artistic importance are the villas built in great numbers during the 16th century, as a result of historical events (wars against Turkey, Spanish competition in the maritime cereals trade in the Mediterranean) that forced the Venetian government to support inland agricultural production.

The villa, therefore, was the centre of a residential and productive complex, necessarily magnificent being destined to receive the rich landowners who transferred themselves there from the city. For this reason, the best architects of the time competed to build these constructions and the most famous is, without doubt, Andrea Palladio, architect also of the splendid Rotonda, near Vicenza, the most famous of his creations.

In subsequent centuries, villa building continued, though not for the same reasons, but as a fashion of wealthy Venetians, leaving however, in the subsequent styles, fine examples of artistic merit. Navigation of the canal or `Riviera' del Brenta, between Venice and Padua, on a tourist steam-boat, the `Burchiello', is an original and delightful way to enter the world of the Ville Venete.

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