asolo italy

asolo italy

Palladian villa tour in Italy is magnificent If Americans have heard the proper noun Asolo, they think of it as an Italian brand of athletic shoes and mountaineering boots. Veteran travelers in northern Italy know better. Asolo, as I discovered with my wife, Rosalie, during a weeklong visit in early July, is a small, heavenly Italian hill town (population, 1,500). It perches above wooded slopes on the edge of the agricultural and industrial plain, or pianura, which extends north and west from Venice and the Adriatic Sea to the foothills of the Dolomites, the towering limestone peaks that form the eastern buttress of the Italian Alps. Beloved by the English poet Robert Browning and the early-20th-century travel writer Freya Stark, Asolo has superb restaurants, arcaded streets lined with shops, great bars and sidewalk cafes, a lively main piazza and a beautiful church installed with religious paintings by the important Renaissance artists Lorenzo Lotto and Jacopo Bassano.

For lovers of Renaissance architecture, Asolo also makes an excellent base for day trips to the world famous Renaissance villas of Andrea Palladio in and around nearby cities, such as Vicenza, Palladio's home town. From Asolo, we found great destinations in every direction. When we returned each day, we left behind the busy gas stations, factories and shopping strips that line the main arteries nearby and ascended the quiet, fragrant, tree-covered slopes that led to Asolo's cozy, cobbled streets. There, we plotted the next day's expedition over a plate of local cheeses washed down with glasses of amarone, the robust red wine of the Veneto, the region that arcs around Venice. If it was hot, we sipped flutes of chilled prosecco, a light, sparkling wine produced in nearby Valdobbiadene, before dining on a regional dishes such as baccala, or salted cod.

Palladio (1508-1580) revolutionized architecture by adapting ancient Greek and Roman architectural motifs to churches, government buildings and country villas of his day. Through his "Four Books of Architecture," he influenced everyone from Sir Christopher Wren to Thomas Jefferson to itinerant carpenters on the American frontier. A cruise along Shaker Boulevard in Shaker Heights is all that's needed to see Palladio's reach. Just about every other house features a simplified version of the classical temple facades Palladio perfected for his Venetian clients.