Villa Foscari and City Fortress of Palmanova

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Villa Foscari

   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.

   Read the complete Villa Foscari write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Villa Foscari is where the day begins. Next is Villa Zeno.

2. 2. Villa Zeno

   Andrea Palladio designed Villa Zeno at Cessalto in the middle of the sixteenth century, and it stands among the flat fields of the lower Piave plain, about five kilometres from the little town of Ceggia and not far from the Livenza river. It is one of the villas of the Veneto that were collectively inscribed on the World Heritage list, and it is quite different from the grand Palladian pieces near Vicenza: an agricultural house, plain and practical, with a broad central block and a pair of long service wings.

   Read the complete Villa Zeno write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Villa Zeno comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is City Fortress of Palmanova.

3. 3. City Fortress of Palmanova

   From the air Palmanova is a perfect nine-pointed star, and even from the saddle you can feel the geometry. The roads come in through monumental gates, cross the moats and ramparts, and run dead straight to a vast hexagonal piazza in the middle, where the whole town seems to stop and look at itself. It is one of the purest examples of an ideal Renaissance city ever built, and it sits on the flat Friulian plain between Udine and the Adriatic like a diagram that somebody forgot to take back.

   Read the complete City Fortress of Palmanova write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 119 km into the recorded legs you reach City Fortress of Palmanova. Next is back through Villa Zeno.

4. 4. back through Villa Zeno

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villa Zeno write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Villa Zeno, late in the day. Next is Villa Foscari.

5. 5. Villa Foscari

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villa Foscari write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Villa Foscari. That is the ride.