Villa Gazzotti Grimani and Villa Zeno

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Villa Gazzotti Grimani

   Palladio is the reason most people know the Veneto's villas, and this was one of his first. Villa Gazzotti Grimani stands at Bertesina, just west of Vicenza on the edge of the flat plain, and dates from the early 1540s, when Andrea Palladio was still a stonemason's apprentice turned architect, not yet the man whose Four Books would shape buildings from Virginia to St Petersburg. It was designed for the Gazzotti family and later passed to the Grimani, whose name remained attached. The plan is bold: a centre block with a loggia stacked above a loggia, and a pair of wings that were meant to curve forward but were never completed.

   Read the complete Villa Gazzotti Grimani write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Villa Gazzotti Grimani is where the day begins. Next is Villa Foscari.

2. 2. 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 comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Zeno.

3. 3. 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

   about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Zeno. Next is back through Villa Foscari.

4. 4. back through 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 through Villa Foscari, late in the day. Next is Villa Gazzotti Grimani.

5. 5. Villa Gazzotti Grimani

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villa Gazzotti Grimani write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Villa Gazzotti Grimani. That is the ride.