The Brenta Canal cruises are very pleasant but no way sensational.The canal is certainly picturesque but the commentaries are predominately in German ! unless you have a dedicated English speaking tour of course. The German can become a litle waring after 2 hours or so !

I am fascinated by the phenomena of the Venetian palladian villas but I did not find the Brenta cruise a good way to explore them. I am still working on the subject (in between living a normal life that is !) and I think the only way is a hire car (heaven forbid!) and do the tedius leg work.

Next week I hope to visit the Villa Emo at Brattaglia and it will probably be closed to the public or just not open, That's Italy for you but you know what they say about it being better to travel than to arrive.

Good luck,

Bob.

I see your posting was in May 2007. Did you go on the boat cruise from Padua to Venice yet? If so, what did you think? Was it worth it? We are traveling in mid September and will be renting a car for a week and staying for a week near Stra. Would it be better for us to see these villas by car or is the boat trip scenic and worth it?

Thank you for your assistance.

As mentioned above, the burchiello cruises are not the best way to see the Palladian villas. For one thing, La Malcontenta is the only villa visited that is by Palladio.

Driving is the best way to see the Palladian villas. For information on opening hours, location, etc.:

www.cisapalladio.org/veneto/index.php…

zerlina, thanks for the information and the website, much great information. Does anyone have their top 5 or 10 villas that should not be missed while in the area? Again we have a rented car and will be staying in Stra, just east of Padua for a week.

Thanks so much

The "big" ones are La Malcontenta, La Rotonda because it's such a classic (you can do without the interior, but do walk a few hundred steps to the Villa Valmarana ai Nani (not by Palladio) and the lovely Giandomenico Tiepolo frescoes in the guesthouse), Villa Barbaro (must-see interior with Veronese frescoes). I also liked some of the lesser ones: Villa Godi, Villa Emo (consdered pretty important, actually), Villa Poiana. Villa Cornaro is another classic, but one that I didn't see.

I don't know how they relate to your location, but the site I posted has a map.

If you're at all interested in the Palladian villas, an easy-to-read and informative book is Witold Rybczynski's "The Perfect House", which is out in paper. The main criticism of the book is that there are too few illustrations.