From Mira, drive twenty minutes to Felsina and you take the half-hour ferry right into Venice, stopping at the Zattere promenade. Easy day trip, then return to Mira before seven P.M. and find your great spot for dinner. This is a relaxing way to experience Venice and the watery world beyond it. We chose it because of proximity to the fabled villas of the area.
We’re enticed by intersecting canals that hint at the vast network of work and transport that once existed among the major towns of Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, Venice. The advent of the railroads in the 1800s caused this way of life to languish, and, eventually, many canals clotted with silt and weeds. But once, the Venetians boarded lavish barges called burchielli, pulled by horses, for their country villas. Some were farms; others just dazzling holiday escapes. The number of villas around Mira is astonishing. Most are private but I’m happy to drive and drive along the canals imagining the rooms, the kitchens, the views onto the water. The road from Mira to Dolo passes many sublime places. In Dolo, we have the pleasure of eating at Ristorante e Pizzeria Al Cristo, right on a canal. Gnocchi with scallops and basil, little octopuses with polenta, and fluffy chocolate profiteroles. Rain again, lovely along the banks with their drifting willows and white geese. On the edge of Dolo we come upon a cluster of villas—Velluti, Badoer De Chantal, Tito. Intermittently, the twentieth century’s uninspired contribution to the landscape crops up. The villas have lost some of their bucolic aspects.
WE’VE RENTED FOR three days an apartment on the Brenta canal. It’s gorgeous. Amazing beams cross and criss like pick-up-sticks. When we look carefully, we home in on a few bizarre pieces of Indonesian furniture. An odd throne chair, and a wardrobe endowed with carvings of sexual positions. (How do they suspend like that?) Just opposite the bed—is this supposed to be inspirational? In the hall downstairs, there’s an identical wardrobe. But overall, the pretty beds with lots of pillows, the comfortable modern sofa, and a well-equipped kitchen make this a fine choice for two writers—we need room to spread out our books and computers.
FOR HOW LONG have I wanted to see the villas along the Brenta? Palladio! Genius, who would be shocked to see his influence on everything from the finest Wren churches in England to American suburban mega-mansion stairway windows, from Inigo Jones to Tara, Thomas Jefferson, and my high school in Fitzgerald, Georgia. We don’t say Wrightian, Corbusarian, Hadidian, but everyone says Palladian. His classical revival became part of our language. Near Mira, we get to see La Malcontenta.
In the ticket office, a distinguished older man in an oversize suit sits on a stool off to the side, obviously waiting for someone but gazing mildly at us as we buy books and talk to the ticket seller. “Yes, several of the books are by the owner of the villa.” We look through them quickly. I see the man slightly smile.
Who was malcontent? A woman who didn’t want to be here. A legend arose around her. Adultery. Exile from Venice. Or was it that the canal was mal contempta, badly contained?
How could this house not inspire stories? The name is actually Villa Foscari, designed in 1554 and built soon after. It is raised on a half-basement, giving loft to the piano nobile. Palladio loved entering directly a large central room with other rooms radiating around it. We only can see the main floor with tatty furniture and magnificent proportions. Frescoes and light from all the, yes, Palladian windows, make the rooms seem fresh and livable.
The farm buildings aren’t connected to the house, as they sometimes are with Palladian villas. We walk around the grounds where a sculpture show is set up in a meadow. The lawns afford different views of the villa. Grand terra-cotta pots of oleander stand along the back of the house, and on the side a knot garden with brick paths is totally neglected. We run into the bookstore clerk and ask. Yes, he smiles, the man was the lucky owner of this monumental treasure.
A WALK ALONG the canal and around the sprawling village of Mira. Easy afternoon. Wandering. Last night, we only wanted a quick pizza and must have chosen the worst place in the Veneto. Slow, loud, and mediocre. Pony pizza, anyone? Well, that’s a local tradition. For tonight, we’re more careful. Ed locates Il Sogno, out in the country, and it is well named: the dream. These Italian waiters! Professional and helpful. Ours has a wide smile and a bald head shining like a rubbed chestnut. As he pours the prosecco, he recommends a Rosso del Milio from the nearby Treviso area, a combination of cabernet and carmenére, which reflects the maker’s “velvet heart.” We are the only foreigners in the long, glassed-in room packed with festive diners. The menu makes life hard. How, possibly, to choose? Ed orders gallina Padovana in saor and loves it. Saor, typically Venetian, is a sweet-sour marinade of vinegar, raisins, onions, pine nuts, olives. Sardines are most often in saor but here it’s served with gallina, hen.
I choose little balls of fish in a crust of pistachios with a red pepper cream. The wine is a heart-breaker, and perfect with our secondo, the duck and white polenta. This is prime polenta country and in the Veneto it’s more often white than the golden type we’re used to.
VILLA PISANI IN the rain under steely skies looks like an etching of itself. This villa—not by Palladio but by Francesco Preti—has 114 rooms. We are alone here, rambling in the stark corridors while lightning strikes and thunder rolls. Adding to the atmosphere, some of the rooms have no lights. Others are furnished like some king’s attic. The villa, built in the eighteenth century, has seen a maelstrom of history pass through: royalty, guests from the vile (Hitler) to the slightly less vile (Mussolini), from the rapacious (Napoleon) to the poetic (Lord Byron).
The villa originally was a holiday house for the Venetian Pisani family. What grand weekends they must have had. Room after room of miniature armchairs, silk basinettes, upright chairs, the draped bed where Napoleon slept. There is, unseen, an interior corridor that must have been used by scurrying servants. Otherwise, you go through one room to get to the next. In the Festive Salon, the ballroom, Tiepolo painted extensive frescoes of the Pisani family. This is considered one of his major works. The children all look pale and unhealthy, as though they exist on white polenta. Tiepolo is an artist I simply cannot appreciate. Everything he paints looks unfinished and wispy. But overall the ballroom is dazzling, the orchestra-level frescoes with monochromatic scenes, the glorious ceiling. Under the glow of the great chandeliers hanging from the four corners, we all could have danced away many a holiday night.
ON OUR LAST night, we return to Ristorante Margherita in Hotel Villa Franceschi, refined and sedate, with old-world atmosphere. We have come back because we stayed here the first time we came to Mira and remember it as romantic. We are immediately offered a Valdo prosecco from Valdobbiadene. We both order the risotto with tiny vegetables from the garden, then I launch into taking apart a plate of savory big scampi in broth. The waiter is pouring an Allegrini Palazzo della Torre from the Verona area. “A baby amarone.” Ed swirls and inhales. “When they make this wine at harvest, they leave out some grapes to dry over the fall. They add them to the wine in January for a second fermentation.” Hence, the deep raisiny taste of amarone but bright and fruity, too. Ed will order cod, that essential European fish, anytime he can. He especially likes this preparation, mantecato de baccalà, whipped and creamy baccalà on polenta.
Villa Franceschi is a perfect choice for a base in the Veneto. The intimate lobby nooks with sofas of crushed velvet, bookcases, and dark paneling are seductive and comfortable. I remember the returns from Venice, how welcoming it felt to step inside the hotel.
I TAKE MY clothes from the Kama Sutra cupboard and pack. From here, it’s only twenty minutes to Mestre, where we board the fast Frecciarosa train for Florence and then home to Cortona. I google Petrarca’s sonnets and as I read them, the lines are punctuated by my seatmate, who is sneezing and blowing her nose. The early autumn gold of poplars flashes by the window. Veneto!