Piombino Dese is a quiet village on the flat plain between Padua and Treviso, the kind of place you pass through on the way to somewhere else. Stop on the main road, though, and look at the house set back behind its lawn. Villa Cornaro was designed by Andrea Palladio in the early 1550s for Giorgio Cornaro, a member of one of the grandest Venetian families, and its central portico rises in two storeys of columns, one loggia stacked on another like a temple front on a temple front. On the garden side the same double loggia faces a long lawn. It is one of the most copied houses in architectural history, and echoes of it can be seen in country houses across England and in mansions of the American South. The villa is part of the UNESCO site of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto, and it opens to visitors on certain days in the warmer months.
Unlike some of Palladio's farm villas, this one sits right in the village, facing the road, as if it wanted to be seen. Inside, the rooms are decorated with stucco and statues added in later centuries, and the proportions are as harmonious as the facade promises.
The surrounding countryside is the flat heart of the Veneto, crossed by irrigation channels, fields of maize and soya, vineyards and lines of poplars. Castelfranco Veneto, a short ride north, is a walled town with a moat and a red brick tower, birthplace of the painter Giorgione, whose mysterious altarpiece hangs in the cathedral. The town also gives its name to a speckled variety of radicchio, cream-coloured with red flecks, a winter favourite in local kitchens.
The riding here is flat and straightforward, honestly more about getting from one beautiful town to another than about the road itself. Traffic can be heavy on the main roads, with trucks and impatient drivers, and fog is common in the autumn and winter. For more interesting riding, head north to the hills around Asolo, with their winding lanes and views over the plain.
Trebaseleghe, about four kilometres away, is the nearest larger town, with fuel and shops. Try a risotto with radicchio, or a plate of local cured meats with a glass of Prosecco from the hills to the north, served at a village trattoria.