Luxury holiday in the footsteps of Palladio
This is a 4-night cultural break following in the footsteps of Palladio, and exploring his great works in the Veneto. This cultural holiday is not just a highly desirable and justifiable trail seeking out the major works of the great High Renaissance architect, Andrea Palladio, but also a wonderful excuse to explore and discover a little-known region in north-east Italy, tucked between the two great cities of Verona and Venice. Based on the outskirts of Vicenza, and therefore easily accessible by car, you have time to explore the elegant city of Vicenza itself and to venture into the countryside to the south and north.
Highlights
Stay in 4-star hotel at Vicenza • Visit the city of Vicenza • Visit Villa Pisani, Villa Pojana and Villa Badoer • Visit Bassano, Villa di Maser and Villa Emo • Villa Foscari (la Malcontenta) on the Brenta Canal • Use hire-car to explore the region
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a double or twin room for 4 nights.
From about
£1.090 Four-star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT05
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury holiday in the footsteps of Palladio
It’s a drive of about an hour from Verona airport to your hotel, the Villa Michelangelo, just outside the city of Vicenza. Time to settle in.
Acquaint yourself with the city of Vicenza: elegant, dignified, compact and home to a number of Palladio’s masterpieces. Amongst his 23 buildings that are here, be sure to see the Palazzo Thiene, the Palazzo Chiericati and the Teatro Olimpico, and then before heading back to your hotel, visit La Rotonda, one of Palladio’s most famous buildings. (N.B. Many are closed on Mondays).
On the third day of this cultural break, we suggest you head first to Villa Pisani at Bagnolo di Lonigo. This is a patrician villa at the heart of an agricultural estate. Then to Villa Pojana, also built for a local family and clearly inspired by ancient Roman baths. Whilst unfinished, the villa demonstrates great creativity, with several frescoes and trompe l’oeil. Villa Badoer dates from about 1560 and was built on the site of a mediaeval castle, necessitating several flights of stairs, which makes the whole resemble an ancient terraced temple. The wings of the building do not actually touch the villa. As a working villa the service rooms were in the basement and there was a granary in the attic. Depending on time and inclination, visit Padua, birthplace of Palladio on the way back to the hotel.
Today, you venture north to the pretty town of Bassano del Grappa, famous for its covered bridge dating from 1569 and designed by Palladio, as well as the ‘grappa’ digestif. Then, the two great Palladian villas nearby are Villa di Maser and Villa Emo. Villa Maser is considered a masterpiece and today is a UNESCO world heritage site as well as sitting amidst a working estate producing excellent wine. Villa Emo at Fanzolo offers perfect harmony between the architectural form, the functions to which it is linked and the surrounding landscape. It is great in its simplicity and geometry.
If you have chosen to return from Venice, then visit Villa Foscari (la Malcontenta) on the Brenta canal on the way. Villa Foscari dates from about 1558-1560 and is built on an exceptionally high pedestal and did not have the agricultural use of so many of Palladio’s villas.
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a double or twin room for 4 nights.
From about
£1.090 Four-star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT05
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Our prices include
● Scheduled flights with British Airways London Gatwick to Verona, returning from Venice (or Verona if preferred) to London Gatwick, in economy
● Four nights’ bed and breakfast in a classic double room at the Villa Michelangelo, Vicenza
● Hire of a group B car for the duration of the holiday
● Concierge service and Expressions Holidays regional helpful hints
Call us on 01392 441245
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a double or twin room for 4 nights.
From about
£1.090 Four-star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT05
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Our prices include
• Scheduled flights with British Airways London Gatwick to Verona, returning from Venice (or Verona if preferred) to London Gatwick, in economy
• Four nights’ bed and breakfast in a classic double room at the Villa Michelangelo, Vicenza
• Hire of a group B car for the duration of the holiday
• Concierge service and Expressions Holidays regional helpful hints
The journey and how you get there There are several British Airways flights from London to Verona and Venice daily. Upon arrival, you collect your hire-car for the drive of about 50 minutes from Verona airport to Vicenza and about 55 minutes from Venice Marco Polo airport to Vicenza.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury holiday in the footsteps of Palladio
Special offers
Call to make your booking and save an extra £50 per adult Call us instead of emailing us when you are thinking of booking a holiday and save an extra £50 per adult (in addition to any special offers that might be available). We want to talk to you to discuss your requirements and a phone call is usually the best way for you to define what you want enabling us to respond more accurately. We want to talk to you and you save an extra £50 per adult.
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a double or twin room for 4 nights.
From about
£1.090 Four-star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT05
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Our prices include
• Scheduled flights with British Airways London Gatwick to Verona, returning from Venice (or Verona if preferred) to London Gatwick, in economy
• Four nights’ bed and breakfast in a classic double room at the Villa Michelangelo, Vicenza
• Hire of a group B car for the duration of the holiday
• Concierge service and Expressions Holidays regional helpful hints
The journey and how you get there There are several British Airways flights from London to Verona and Venice daily. Upon arrival, you collect your hire-car for the drive of about 50 minutes from Verona airport to Vicenza and about 55 minutes from Venice Marco Polo airport to Vicenza.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury holiday in the footsteps of Palladio
About Veneto
An Expressions tailor-made holiday to Veneto incorporates the beauty, culture and heritage of this popular Italian region. Like its northern neighbour, Friuli, Veneto is cradled by the Dolomites to the north, the Venetian planes to the south, and the Adriatic to the east, giving it an almost unsurpassed scenic, cultural and architectural variety. Unlike Friuli, however, Veneto is one of the most visited regions in Italy, with Venice the undoubted jewel in its preposterously beautiful crown. While most people race through Veneto in their rush to get to Venice, the region is a veritable treasure trove of beautiful towns, many of them blessedly devoid of tourist crowds, who are elsewhere on the Venetian lagoon. Of these, Padua is a gem of a cobbled university town littered with Giotoa frescoes, Verona, home to Romeo and Juliet, is one of the prettiest ancient cities in Italy, Vicenza is the stunning ‘laboratory’ of Andrea Palladio, one of the most influential architects in history, and in Treviso, Veneto has a wonderful, scaled down version of Venice, complete with beautiful canals. That said, with flights into Venice, you could happily spend every holiday for the rest of your life in Veneto's celebrated capital. A staggeringly spectacular town, it does of course get busy in summer, but with no cars in the city centre, Byron's ‘fair city of the heart' has a peaceful, festive air even in high season, with a string of quieter, but equally enchanting, fascinating islands scattered around the lagoon, and an excellent network of ferries and vaporetti taking you there.
Highlights of Veneto
Veneto has a wealth of culture and interest to immerse yourself in, including: Venice carnival, an extravagant pageant making the city even more impossibly beautiful than normal; the islands of the lagoon, including Murano, famous for its glass-makers, whose workshops you can visit, and Burano, with its wonderfully colourful facades; Treviso, a scaled down Venice, great escaping the high-season crowds; Soave, a fairy-tale castle town famous for its wines; Albano, a classic 19th century thermal town; Lake Garda, flanked by lemon and olive groves, with the Dolomites reflected in its lakes, and 7,227ft Monte Baldo behind it, which you can reach by cable car; tiny village of Marostica, which stages a human chess game with ‘pieces' dressed in Renaissance costumes; Valpollicella, a lush valley strewn with family wineries; Padua and its Giotto frescoes; the Romanesque abbey of San Pietro di Foletto in Follina; numerous Palladian villas, including Bararao, Villa Emo, La Rotonda, Villa Godi and Villa Valmarana; Cima's masterpiece of an altarpiece in Conegliano cathedral; the August Palio in Feltre, with medieval games, horse racing and celebrations; Treviso's festival of dance, poetry and music in August; birdwatching on the Venice lagoon and Po delta; local cuisine, including Spaghetti alle Vongole and Prosecco from Conegliano; the fishing port of Chioggia.
