Discover Veneto 2026-27

Bassano del Grappa, crossed by the River Brenta, is one of the most populous and developed towns in the Veneto. Its craftsmanship, with its excellent ceramics, and a gastronomic tradition built around products such as asparagus, salt cod and the famous grappa are the pride of the town. The historical events that have touched this small town and its surroundings have shaped the appearance of this beautiful Italian village. The Hemingway and Great War Museum is certainly worth a visit. It was precisely the Red Cross “Section One” stationed in Bassano del Grappa that counted the celebrated Hemingway among its volunteers. In the five exhibition rooms you can retrace the various phases of the conflict and admire the documents of the wartime “Hemingway Collection”. Bassano del Grappa is a very ancient town, crossed by the River Brenta and lying at the foot of the Venetian Alps between Monte Grappa and the Plateau of the Seven Communes. Famous for its grappa, produced in Italy’s oldest distillery, and for the Ponte degli Alpini designed by Andrea Palladio, it was for a long time a land of commerce and a crossroads of trade and cultures, proving fertile ground for weavers, goldsmiths, ceramicists and carpenters, as well as being the artistic cradle of Jacopo Da Ponte and the famous Remondini prints. Bassano is indeed a town of great artistic and cultural depth: its historic centre is rich in squares, churches, towers, palaces, museums, monuments and artisan workshops of great interest. The addition “del Grappa” came after the tragic events that saw Bassano, overlooked by the 1,776-metre summit of Monte Grappa, become a key point of last-ditch strategic resistance during the First World War.

Cittadella is the only town in Europe with an elliptical plan, where you can walk the ancient patrol walkway along the walls, 1,660 metres long. The circuit of walls was built in 1220 by the commune of Padua to protect itself from the threat of Treviso. The starting point of the walkway along the walls of Cittadella is Porta Bassano. Four gates open at the cardinal points, facing the neighbouring cities: Treviso, Padua, Vicenza and Bassano. At the end of the walkway stands the massive Torre di Malta, now home to the Archaeological Museum and a viewpoint over the whole of Cittadella. As you stroll you can see the Palazzo Municipale, or Palazzo della Loggia, a Gothic building with a portico on the ground floor that houses the coats of arms of the podestà and a stone Lion of St Mark. Along the walkway you can also visit the parish church of Saints Prosdocimus and Donatus, a building of sixteenth-century origin, today neoclassical in form.

Marostica, the city of chess.

Marostica is a medieval town in the province of Vicenza, a walled town lying along the foothills of the Alps. It owes its fortified appearance to the Scaliger dynasty, who in the fourteenth century built the upper castle on the Pausolino hill, the lower castle and the circuit of walls linking them. Among the buildings of interest are, precisely, the two castles of Marostica. The Lower Castle dates from 1312 and, with its battlements, rectangular plan and keep, is a fine example of military architecture. The Upper Castle also dates from 1312; it is square in shape, with four small towers at the corners and a tower in the centre. The manor was once equipped with a well, still visible today in the inner courtyard, a church and a charming windmill. The two castles are linked by the circuit of walls which, descending the hillside, traces a pentagonal shape with its perimeter. Also worth seeing is the Doglione, also known as the Rocca di Mezzo, which dates from the Middle Ages and in the thirteenth century served as a customs house for goods entering or passing through Marostica. Marostica is also famous throughout Italy for its chess game, in which the pieces are played by living people. It is a folk spectacle in period costume with a historical setting, staged every two years.

Arquà Petrarca is a medieval village set amid the greenery of the Euganean Hills. Its history and its very name are linked to the poet Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), who chose to make his home in Arquà Petrarca in the last years of his life. Indeed, here you can visit Petrarch’s house in Via Valleselle, still surrounded by greenery and the vegetable gardens of old. Another monument linked to the memory of the poet of the Canzoniere is Petrarch’s Tomb, a sarcophagus in red Verona marble set in the churchyard of the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta. The church was altered several times over the centuries, and inside it the high altar stands out, which came from the Hermitage of Monte Rua and is the work of Francesco Rizzi. Another church of particular interest is the Oratory of the Holy Trinity, Romanesque in appearance, with a single nave and a pitched roof; the church also holds works of art, including traces of frescoes. Outside the church stands the Loggia dei Vicari, built in local stone. This was the place set aside for meetings and for settling disputes between the heads of families and the Vicars. One last place linked to the poet is Petrarch’s Fountain, which already existed before his arrival in the medieval village and from which he used to draw water. In the upper part of Arquà Petrarca, meanwhile, stand Palazzo Contarini, built in fifteenth-century Venetian Gothic style, and the “Del Guerriero” inn, now abandoned. Arquà Petrarca boasts a priceless historical and natural heritage; indeed it is considered one of the most beautiful villages in Italy and has been awarded the Orange Flag by the Italian Touring Club, a mark of quality for tourism and the environment. The medieval village is also known for its wines: its production ranges from Rosso dei Colli Euganei to sweet wines made from various strains of Moscato grapes.

Padua and its entire fourteenth-century cycle of frescoes have become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Not only the Scrovegni Chapel, even though Giotto’s fame was clearly decisive: there are also the Palazzo della Ragione with its enormous and mysterious cycle of frescoes, the Basilica of St Anthony and then the Baptistery of the Cathedral, the Church of Saints Philip and James at the Eremitani, the Chapel of the Carrarese Palace, the Oratory of St George and that of St Michael, with works by Guariento, Giusto de’ Menabuoi, Luca Belludi, Altichiero da Zevio and Jacopo Avanzi. Eight sites where history, culture and even science intertwine, an immense artistic heritage that in the fourteenth century made Padua the driving force behind the renewal of Europe’s figurative language, the cradle of Western art as we know it today. This artistic heritage illustrates a completely new way of representing narrative in painting, with new spatial perspectives influenced by advances in the science of optics and a new ability to depict human figures in all their characteristics, including feelings and emotions. Padua is one of the few cities in the world to hold two UNESCO sites within the narrow confines of its walls, since the Botanical Garden, adjacent to the complex of the Basilica of St Anthony, is already a World Heritage Site. The Scrovegni Chapel, the flagship monument of the nomination, is Giotto’s best-preserved fresco work and his masterpiece. Scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin, figures of prophets and allegories unfold within geometric frames beneath the starry blue sky of the vault, while the allegorical figures of the Vices and Virtues accompany the visitor towards the majestic Last Judgement.