VENETO TRAVEL MAP

The Veneto region is rich with dramatic landscapes and treasures of art and architecture - most within a day's reach by train. With the railway station just 10 minutes from our houses in Cannaregio. Click on a city name for a quick introduction.




	PADUA is best known as the home of one of the world's greatest art treasures. The Scrovegni Chapel is the masterpiece of Giotto, one of the father figures of Western art. Even today, his fresco cycle of the life of Christ is extraordinarily fresh and vivid. You can also explore the renaissance heart of the city, look around the university where Galileo Galilei studied and taught, or sip hot chocolate in the bullet-scarred Caffè Pedrocchi, home to intellectuals, revolutions and afternoon tea.


			VICENZA is a UNESCO world heritage site and an open-air tribute to the architect Andrea Palladio; the main shopping street, Corso del Popolo, is a luxurious parade of marble colonnades, loggias and Palladian buildings. Outside the city are some of the most significant Palladian villas.




	VERONA is a city of major Roman remains, dominated by the Arena, which is still used: an enormous open-air opera festival is held there during the summer months. There is also a fascinating museum of Roman antiquities that looks out over the city and the river twisting through it. Verona has the classic renaissance city centre of a northern Italian town: winding, narrow streets ruffled only by the distant buzz of a Vespa motorcycle. Verona's large art gallery hosts permanent displays and temporary exhibitions.


			MILAN is one of the great fashion capitals of Europe, a popular shopping destination. You could mix Milan into your stay for the odd day/night's retail therapy or a visit to the La Scala opera house.


	FLORENCE AND ROME Too far for a day trip? Rome, definitely, but if you want to add it on at the beginning or end of your stay remember it's just half a day's travel. If you want to go to Florence for the day, you'd need to be prepared for a long day (depart Venice 06:33, arrive Florence 09:22; depart Florence 20:38, arrive Venice 23:27), but you would get 11 hours in Florence ... and be in bed well before midnight.


			TRIESTE is a crossroads city, which has often swapped its allegiances between Austria, Italy and the Balkans. James Joyce lived here between 1904-1915 and began Ulysses in Trieste, revelling in the cultural collisions of the city's language and architecture.


			CORTINA and its valley: a very pleasant day trip from Venice, especially if combined with Belluno. Car hire is the easiest way to explore the snowlines, meadows and peaks of the Dolomites, which are viciously jagged and raw, looking as if they emerged from the ground hundreds, not millions of years ago.


			BELLUNO AND CORTINA: both towns a pleasant day trip from Venice. You can reach Belluno by train, but car hire is the best way to explore the valleys that take you to the Dolomites. The Austro-Hungarian/Swiss influences are visible in the onion domes of churches and the log cabins as you rise towards the snowline.

The journey times given are the fastest direct train services from the timetable at December 2004. To consult the current rail timetable, go to the All-Europe Railway timetable, entering Venice as "Venezia S.Lucia".