Vicenza is Palladio's town, and almost everything worth seeing is a version of one man's idea of what a building should be. Andrea Palladio, born in Padua and trained as a stonemason, designed palaces, villas and churches in and around Vicenza in the sixteenth century, and his work, with its Roman columns, pediments and strict proportions, shaped architecture across the world, from English country houses to the White House. The city and the villas in its surrounding countryside are together a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a walk down Corso Palladio feels like a stroll through an architectural textbook.
The centrepiece is the Basilica Palladiana, a great hall with a double arcade of white columns that wraps an older medieval building, set on the Piazza dei Signori. The Teatro Olimpico, a few minutes' walk away, is the oldest surviving enclosed theatre in Europe, a fully built stage set that mimics a Roman theatre, with a wooden stage and painted perspective streets that seem to recede for kilometres. Just outside the city, the Villa Capra, known as La Rotonda, stands on a hill with a dome and four identical porticoes, an extraordinary combination of symmetry and landscape.
For a motorcyclist, Vicenza is a city stop with good surroundings. The centre has a limited traffic zone, so leave the bike outside and walk in. The nearby Berici Hills, to the south, offer winding roads through vineyards, small villages and cypress-lined avenues, much less crowded than the Dolomites. To the north, the road leads up toward Asiago and the Pasubio, where the First World War left trenches, tunnels and memorials, and the roads climb in dozens of hairpins to the high plateau.
Fuel, food and coffee are easy, as the city has over a hundred thousand people. It is known for its goldsmiths and jewellery industry, as well as for baccalà alla vicentina, a dish of dried cod stewed slowly in milk and onions, which is a source of local pride, usually served with polenta. Local wines include Durello and Breganze.
Spring and autumn are lovely, and the lanes of the Berici bring colour. In August the heat is oppressive and the city empties for the holidays.