Top Vicenza Arts & Design

Explore Vicenza, the UNESCO-protected city shaped by Andrea Palladio, the stonemason-turned-architect who revolutionized Italian design. This 75-minute walking tour begins at Salvi Gardens, winding through medieval streets past grand palaces and defensive towers. You'll hear stories of warring nobles, Venetian rule, and how Palladio's innovative designs blended classical principles with practical needs, influencing architecture worldwide. Highlights include: • Palladio's masterpieces: Basilica Palladiana and Palazzo Chiericati • Torrione di Porta Castello tower from medieval fortifications • Roman cryptoporticus from the 1st century BC • Gothic Casa Pigafetta with its "no roses without thorns" motto • Teatro Olimpico, featuring original 1585 wooden scenery

Visit Villa Valmarana ai Nani near Vicenza and discover the stories behind the Palladian villa's famous dwarf statues and Tiepolo frescoes. With a multimedia tablet as your guide, you'll explore the frescoed rooms of the owner's residence and guest house along with the historical park and gardens. Learn about the Valmarana family who originally commissioned the artwork, and hear their story as the villa owners through to the present day. Most visits typically last around an hour.

The most complete guided and narrated tour to discover Vicenza, a city of many priceless UNESCO World Heritage beauties, captivating stories and troubling events, and of a humble stonemason who will go down in history by forever redefining Architecture and its canons. You will enjoy it aboard a comfortable and fun Palladian E-Bike, to reach even the wonders out of town inaccessible on foot, and not really miss anything in the City of Palladio. Your Cicero Palladiano will lead you into the history of an unexpectedly ancient community, independent in spirit and merchant by vocation. A plot that will tell of international political alliances born from the ferment of the Reformation, of nobles not only in rank, and of the parable of a genius of the artist who became a model of modernity. From squares to palaces, from villas to bridges over the water to historic villages: every glimpse or panorama, every illustrious person will become part of an intertwining that you cannot help but love.

The medieval town walls of Cittadella offer the rare opportunity to walk along a perfectly preserved defensive parapet, and admire both the original architecture and the views across the surrounding hills. This ticket gives you access to the 800-year-old parapet ring 15 meters above ground, and a number of historic halls, towers, and a panoramic terrace incorporated into the walls.

The unique and original E-Bike tour of the Palladian Villas explores the surroundings of Vicenza passing through 11 Villas, of which 7 are Unesco Palladian Heritage Sites. The experience includes the rental of a luxurious Palladian E-Bike extremely comfortable and performing (bag and padlocks included), a special navigation system and a traveling voice narration: the guiding voice will be the spirit of Andrea Palladio, who traces his story through the evolution of his villas (entrance fees excluded) and immersion in his landscapes. The network of Palladian Villa owners invites you to immerse yourself in the history and landscapes of the other half of our UNESCO World Heritage Site in an original, active and sustainable way. Deep in the Vicenza countryside, sumptuous residences follow one another as far as the eye can see in a widespread eco-museum, architectural forms in continuous evolution until the gemstone of the world-famous Palladian Villa, thanks to the genius of a modest and prodigious stonemason.

The guided tour is the most complete and structured way to discover Villa Valmarana ai Nani, where rooms, frescoes and family stories take shape step by step. Thanks to the staff of the Palazzina, visitors will be led through the main rooms in a story that interweaves the constructive history of the Villa and the Valmarana family, together with the reading of the cycle of frescoes. The itinerary is entrusted to a trained Guide, able to combine rigorous content and accessible narration that explores both the interior spaces, with the interpretation of the great cycle of frescoes created by the Tiepolos, and the exterior spaces, with a careful eye to the description of architectural choices and the taste of the time. The visit lasts about 1.30 h and is available in Italian and English.

For a sampling overview of Vicenza's suburban Palladian Villas and the fascinating history of the great Architect. A splendid self-guided E-Bike ride among bucolic landscapes and works of genius that marked the history of our Golden Age. Every place in Vicenza has seen the works of this brilliant architect come to life. In the streets of the center, cobblestones recall the steps of a young stonemason who came from Padua to build the new face of the city and its fortunate countryside. Just outside the urban area, among the stones and dust of courtyards in the making, Giangiorgio Trissino coined the most famous name in modern architecture: Palladio, who, like an angel with golden wings, came to shape the forms of a new culture. In addition to the Unesco heritage sites listed in the tour details, you will also be able to pass by and admire the Oasis of the Sources of the Bacchiglione River and the beautiful Villa da Porto Pedrotti and Villa da Porto Casarotto.