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Treviso, or "Venice" as it is known to Ryanair, is a surprisingly
interesting city about an hour's drive north of Venice (Venice as
known to the civilised world, that is). Described by some
guide books (God save us from guide books), as a "Little Venice",
simply on the basis that it has a river running through it and some
quite attractive buildings overlooking the same.
But then, the number of alternative "Venices"
is quite staggering from the plausible
Stockholm,
Venice of the North, replete with loads of water, islands, an entire
archipelago, to
Henningsvaer, with one little island, quite implausibly Venice
of the very far North...get a grip. It is about as plausible
as Manchester which likewise has a canal, but no Gothic
architectural heritage, is cold, wet and utterly devoid of Latin
charm...although does charge similar prices for beer (Henningsvaer,
not Manchester).
Not a bad place to act as a base for
exploring the surrounding area, although be prepared for appalling
traffic, enhanced by totally random Italian driving habits and roads
of dire quality, spurious and incomprehensible speed limits,
directions...but within an hour or so of Vicenza, Padua and most of
the Palladian villas which were the focus of my attention at the
time.
Apparently home to Benetton who manage to
blag a prime location right in the centre of the old town, rather
incongruous but quite tasteful. Apart from the "important"
churches and stuff, there are countless beautiful buildings
including some quite stupendously indulgent villas along the side of
the river.
Probably quite a nice place to live!
I assume there must be dozens of excellent
restaurants if only on the basis that I stumbled upon two out of two
rather pleasant places without even trying. |
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