Gardens & Villas of the Veneto - Renaissance to recent in & around Padua, Verona & Vicenza

Fly at c. 10.30am from London Heathrow to Venice (British Airways). First of three nights in an elegant villa on the Brenta Canal at Mira Porte.

Today we visit two flower-filled gardens. In contrast to Stra, the Villa Pisani at Vescovana is a more modest affair, with an English-inspired Romantic garden of the 19th century. The garden designed around the 16th-century Villa Emo at Rivella was created in the 1960s. Villa Barbarigo at Valsanzibio is a Baroque masterpiece complete with water jests, boxwood maze and extensive pools, designed as an allegory of man’s progress towards salvation

Spend the morning at the beautiful and historic Botanic Garden at Padua. The oldest such establishment in the world, it was founded in 1545 by order of the Venetian government and was absorbed by the university shortly after. The oldest living plant dates to 1550. In the afternoon, there is a choice of spending time in this gem of a city or of returning to rest in the hotel and its gardens.

Villa Fracanzan Pievone maintains a traditional orchard and kitchen garden, among the few left in the Veneto. The charming artificial caves excavated under the Villa Frassanelle in the 1880s by Count Alberto Papafava replicate the natural caves within his park, complete with secret passageways, stalactites and underground lakes. The final visit is to the Baroque gardens of the Villa da Schio at Costozza, where we also visit the winery and sample the wines of the estate. Continue to Vicenza for the first of three nights.

Through a series of terraces, walks and panoramic belvederes, the gardens of Trissino Marzotto link two villas set into a hillside dominating the Agno valley. The upper villa was converted from a medieval fortress, while the lower is now a romantic ruin. The private garden of Villa da Schio is a beautifully proportioned Italian garden set in the plain below Trissino. Free afternoon in Vicenza, the exceedingly handsome little city embellished by the architect Andrea Palladio and his followers.

The Pojega Garden at Villa Rizzardi, commissioned in 1783, is one of the last remaining examples of an Italian-style garden created before the fashion for landscape gardens took hold. Incorporating three descending terraces, it takes full advantage of the steep hillside with formal gardens, hornbeam avenues and a green theatre. Visit Villa Arvedi, whose impressive parterre was designed to be viewed from above, followed by lunch in the Baroque grotto. See also the Giardino Giusti on the outskirts of nearby Verona; created in 1580, it is among the finest Renaissance gardens in Europe. 

Visit the Villa Pisani at Stra, one of the most opulent of the Brenta villas, owned briefly by Napoleon. Within a bend in the Brenta canal, the garden was inspired by Le Notre’s long vistas at Versailles where Andrea Pisani Alvise had been ambassador to Louis XIV. Fly from Venice to London Heathrow, arriving c. 5.15pm.