Veneto Villas

The Veneto runs from Venice west across the plain to Verona and north into the Dolomites — geographically the largest of the northeast Italian regions and one of the wealthiest. Most travellers visit Venice and miss the Veneto; the people who know stay in the Veneto and visit Venice.

The mainland holds Asolo (a Roman hilltown built into a medieval one, Robert Browning's town), Bassano del Grappa (the wooden bridge designed by Palladio, the grappa distilleries), Treviso (a moated, canal-laced small city with the best risi e bisi and the original tiramisu at Le Beccherie), Padua (the Scrovegni Chapel with Giotto's frescoes, the Basilica of Sant'Antonio), Vicenza (Palladio's hometown — half the buildings in town are his), Verona (the Arena, the Romeo and Juliet courtyard, the Castelvecchio).

North, the Prosecco Hills (Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, UNESCO-listed since 2019) are the country of small-production Cartizze and Glera prosecco — vineyards so steep they are hand-picked, terraced, and unmechanisable. Beyond the prosecco country, the Dolomites — Cortina, the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Lago di Braies — are an hour and a half north for a long day or an overnight.

The food in the Veneto is its own — risotto (with cuttlefish ink, with radicchio, with frogs in spring, with peas in early summer), baccalà mantecato, sarde in saor, cicchetti (the Venetian bar snacks), polenta. Wines: Prosecco of course, but also the great reds — Amarone della Valpolicella, Valpolicella Classico Superiore, Recioto. Restaurants: Da Bepi in Verona, Le Beccherie in Treviso, Antica Pasticceria al Ponte in Asolo, Cracco al Ponte in Treviso, Locanda Cipriani on Torcello.

May, June, and September are our favourite months — warm weather, settled sun, prosecco-vineyard greenery, and Venice itself far less crowded than in July and August. October is beautiful in the Prosecco Hills (the vendemmia). Late autumn and early winter are the radicchio season in Treviso and the truffle season in the Asolo hills. Venice in February (Carnevale) is its most theatrical.

The Veneto has a continental climate softened by the Adriatic — cold damp winters (40s°F) and warm humid summers (low 80s°F). Spring and autumn carry rain. The Prosecco Hills and the Asolo countryside are cooler than the plain.

We almost always recommend the mainland. Venice itself is expensive, queue-laden, and most Venetian apartments are small and dark. Stay in a villa near Asolo, Treviso, Bassano, or in the Prosecco Hills, and you get the Veneto countryside as your daily life and Venice as a chosen day-trip. We arrange private water-taxis for the Venice days.

The great Venetian risottos (al nero di seppia, al radicchio, alle rane, ai bisi), baccalà mantecato, sarde in saor, cicchetti (the bar snacks of Venice), polenta with everything, Treviso radicchio in season, the original tiramisu at Le Beccherie in Treviso. Wines: Prosecco, Amarone, Valpolicella, Soave. Restaurants: Antiche Carampane in Venice, Locanda Cipriani on Torcello, Le Beccherie in Treviso, Da Bepi in Verona, Antica Pasticceria al Ponte in Asolo.

Palladian villa tours, prosecco tastings in the UNESCO Cartizze hills, a private water-taxi day in Venice, a Cortina day-trip into the Dolomites, the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, the Verona Arena (opera in summer), and slow afternoons in the Asolo and Bassano hilltowns.

Venice (1 hr + vaporetto), Verona (90 min west), the Dolomites (90 min north), Padua (45 min south), Vicenza (1 hr west), Lake Garda (90 min west), the Prosecco Hills (45 min north).

Yes — for the mainland villa stays. For Venice days we leave the car at a mainland garage and take a private water-taxi or the train into Santa Lucia. Most of our Veneto bookings include a small car and a driver service for full days out.