Locals call it La Malcontenta, the unhappy woman, and the stories about who she was are better than any of them can prove. The legend says a Foscari wife was banished here for her bad behaviour in Venice; the duller truth is that the name probably came from the area or a nearby canal long before the villa existed. Either way, the house Andrea Palladio built for the brothers Nicolò and Alvise Foscari around 1560 is one of his masterpieces, a temple-fronted block raised on a high base above the Brenta canal, looking out over the water like a Roman villa that had wandered down to the lagoon. It forms part of the UNESCO listing of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
The Riviera del Brenta, the stretch of canal between Padua and Venice, was where Venetian patricians built their summer houses, and dozens of villas line the water at Mira, Dolo and Stra. Boats still carry visitors along the canal, through old locks and past swing bridges, on a route that the old burchiello passenger barges used to follow. Inside La Malcontenta, frescoes by Battista Franco and Giovanni Battista Zelotti decorate the halls, and the garden facing the canal is a calm place to sit.
Riding here is flat and often busy. The road along the canal is lovely to look at but crowded with traffic, cyclists and lorries heading for Mestre and the port of Marghera, and the many bridges, traffic lights and speed limits keep the pace slow. If you want curves, head south-west to the Euganean Hills beyond Padua, where volcanic cones covered with vineyards and chestnut woods offer short, twisty roads and thermal spa towns.
Mira and Mestre are both close, with all the fuel, shops and food you could want. Along the canal you will find trattorias serving Venetian cooking: bigoli in salsa, thick pasta with anchovy and onion, sarde in saor, sweet and sour sardines, and risotto with whatever the lagoon provides. Venice itself is a short hop away, though the bike stays on the mainland; Tronchetto and Piazzale Roma have car parks, and from there you walk or take the boat.
Spring and early autumn bring the kindest light on the canal, when the villa's white columns glow and mist rises off the water in the morning. Summer is hot, humid and generous with mosquitoes. Arrive on a weekday morning, stand at the water's edge and admire one of the most perfectly balanced buildings ever made.