Mosaic Madness: The Roman villas around the Val di Noto are beyond compare

I went off to university with strict instructions: no easy classes, and everything should directly support a prosperous career. I put two full academic years behind me before I could get my mother be at peace with me braking those rules to take Roman Art and Architecture.

It was the most effortless “A” I ever earned at Northwestern. Not because the course was easy, but because I treasured every minute spent with Professor Jim Packer, consumed every bit of course material with enthusiasm and found the artistic observation and analysis required of me to be something my mother had baked in to my character. I loved that class, and it laid down a bucket list of sites I’ve spent my life working through. Of those not in danger zones, the most significant left was the Villa Romana del Casale in the Sicilian countryside.

This trip, I finally got there, and it lived up to 40 years of dreaming expectations.

The Villa Romana del Casale is one of the great sights of Sicily. It’s just outside Piazza Armerina, a Baroque hill town on the edge of the Val di Noto Unesco World Heritage site. The Villa is a World Heritage Site on its own. It’s hard to throw a cannolo in heritage-laden Sicily without hitting one.

“Villa” is a bit of a misnomer. This is more of a palace, with the latest scholarly opinion thinking it may have belonged to Maximian, one of four emperors splitting ruling responsibilities in the late 3rd century. (He shared power with Diocletian, whose enormous retirement villa evolved into the town of Split.) Some sort of governmental function would explain the almost ludicrous scale here. You just can’t imagine private citizens having a complex this large and reception rooms on this scale, no matter how wealthy they were.

But you’re not here for the size. You come for the mosaics and, to a smaller extent, the preserved frescoes on the remaining walls. This is a place to be captivated by details. I have marvelled at a lot of Roman mosaics in my life, but have never seen so many wonders in one place. (The Bardo Museum in Tunis is the only thing that comes close.)

Room after room of floors surge with life. People, animals and plants are hemmed in my colourful geometric borders. If you couldn’t clearly see the lines, you’d swear they were paintings. It’s hard to get your head around the idea that all of these extraordinary scenes are comprised of tiny squares of glass and stone.

The place proclaims it’s not your average “villa” from the very first room, a massive chamber that spills out into a covered walkway like a cloister that goes around a square almost the size of a football pitch. The reception room you can see beyond that is the shape and size of a full Roman basilica rather than a domestic space. You see it all from raised walkways because nobody is allowed to tread anymore on what were made as floors. Even the most casual observer will need at least 45 minutes to walk through all of the rooms. I needed more than two hours.

There’s a wide variety of scenes and styles here; so many a modern interior designer would probably criticise the lack of consistency across the complex. These days, that’s what makes it fun. The Villa is most famous for a long, wide hallway showing the hunting for, capture and transport of wild African animals who were to be used in shows in the Colosseum and other Roman arenas. 

There’s another animal-themed room off the main quadrangle where Orpheus is charming scores of wild beasts with his songs. And another hunt. It’s a good hint that was what rich people came to the rich forests around here to do. The level of detail is extraordinary, though there are times you suspect the artists had never seen some of the more exotic beasts they were called upon to depict. There are some decidedly dodgy crocodiles and hippopotami. But when the artists bring hunters face-to-face with lions or wild boar they’re at their best, showing the raw emotions of both combatants.

Elsewhere, there’s an elliptical room where the floor has been turned into a chariot-racing arena, with the contestants going hell-for-leather mid race. One is even caught taking a spill, with the drivers behind him pulling hard on reigns to avoid him. 

In the family’s private rooms, as a send-up to that impressive racing art, is a room where cherubs contest each other in little carts tied to birds. Elsewhere in the private rooms, life-sized women engage in various workouts at the gym; this is the other particularly famous bit of the Villa, renown for their classical-era bikinis. 

At the entrance to the baths, a regal woman thought to be the lady of the house greets visitors with her staff behind her. There’s another set of reception spaces off to one side of the main building where the mosaics show scenes of the gods and Hercules battling across the room at a scale about twice life-sized. To be honest, if you were trying to do business in here when the floor was complete I think it might make you a bit queasy, so crazy are the proportions.

My favourite mosaic was in a semi-circular room approaching the kitchens with what would have been a fountain at its centre. Here, in one of the best places in the world to eat seafood, is an aquatic scene of a staggering variety of fish and waterfowl, interspersed with playful cherubs swimming, fishing and sailing in a seascape with exquisite colonnades of classical architecture framing the shore. 

Too much pattern can make your head spin, so I also enjoyed quieter spaces where the floors are mostly geometric designs, sometimes standing alone and sometimes framing details of plants or animals. Another of the kitchen rooms, with braids and wreaths around seasonal fruits and vegetables at their peak, would work in a home today. 

The Villa Romana del Casale was the single most crowded attraction we went to on Sicily. (Remember we skipped highly-trafficked Cefalù, Taormina and Ortigia.) Though there’s nothing but farmland for several miles around, the Villa has an enormous pay-to-exit car park in a deep valley and there’s a small mall of tourist booths on the way to the Villa from there full of pottery and other Sicilian crafts. This is definitely bus tour territory. Curiously, most of the tourists were continental Europeans. We heard only one English-speaking group come through. Though there were at least 20 individual cars there, the majority of visitors definitely came off buses. The secret, we learned, was to take your time, stand still and admire details while the bus tours flowed around you. In between them, you were often almost alone.

To be truly alone with Roman antiquity, however, you can head to another villa with murals on the other side of the Val di Noto. The Villa Romana del Tellaro was much smaller than Casale. Only the partial remains of four rooms’ floors and a hallway remain today, but the quality here is almost as good as the more famous villa. The intricately patterned hallway suggests that oriental carpets form a direct line of descent from Roman mosaics. There are more impressive hunting scenes here, a delightful vignette of lovers and a particularly fabulous tiger strolling through acanthus leaves. 

This is relatively new as a tourist site. For much of the 20th century this was an abandoned farmhouse, like so many that dot the Sicilian countryside. At some point in the 60s, someone discovered ancient mosaics here and started selling them out of the country on the black market. Customs officers discovered the scheme, then the government bought the house and excavated the ruins. Despite the fact it’s just a stone’s through from immensely popular Noto, this feels very undiscovered.

The Villa Romana del Casale is definitely worth a special trip. (Try Villa Trigona, as described in my introductory article, for a place to stay.) But if you can’t get that far and are in Ortigia or Noto, then at least do yourself the favour of getting to Tellaro. Both of these villas show off the incredible opulence of Sicily in the late Roman Empire. Particularly if you happened to be a Roman overlord. They created a feast for the eyes that, thanks to durable building materials, is still truly wondrous.

The Greek Pompeii? Selinunte is a lesser-known wonder on Sicily’s southwest coast

It doesn’t take much browsing through online travel forums to realise that the vast majority of tourists go to a tiny number of places ordained as “must sees”. In Sicily, the default itinerary is Cefalù, Taormina, and Ortigia. If you’re up for some Greek ruins you’ll throw in a day trip to Agrigento. In a search for a more authentic, less crowded Sicily, we avoided all of these spots.

When it came to the island’s Greek roots, we headed for Segesta and Selinunte and were richly rewarded.

Selinunte was one of our favourite experiences of the whole trip, and we both enjoyed it even more than Agrigento, which we explored thoroughly and loved on a visit a decade ago. (We actually drove right underneath the ridge of temples at Agrigento this time on our way to Piazza Armerina, but didn’t stop.)

There are three reasons Selinunte had such an impact: the vast scale of the place, its striking location, and the relative absence of tourists.

First, some context: With its strategic position right in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sicily was a prize colony from the moment the first gang with boats and swords came up with the idea of an overseas pied a terre. Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Greeks all sunk roots, creating colonial city states rather than taking over the whole island. Ortigia/Siracusa and Agrigento were such entities, Selinunte another lying 58 miles west of Agrigento along the same coast. Greeks founded it in the 600s BC as their westernmost colony. The Carthaginians took it over in the 400s BC and it later became a battleground in the wars between Rome and Carthage. By 200 BC it was already a ruin.

While Agrigento remained a population centre with layers of successive building repurposing and layering over its Greek foundations, Selinunte mostly lapsed back into countryside. When people got interested in classical antiquity and started digging stuff up, they could easily unearth the enormous sprawl of the city beneath olive groves and pastures. Today’s site sprawls over about two square miles with three distinct areas for exploration: The East Hill, with the most complete temple ruins (this is what you see in most photos of the place), the Acropolis (essentially the city centre, with housing and public buildings), and Gaggera Hill in the west, with another big temple complex. Unless you want to hike miles through arid, coastal scrubland, buy the ticket that includes shuttle services. Oversized golf carts will whisk you between the main areas while giving you some excellent views.

The entry building is the only place you’ll encounter a crowd; once people get their tickets and set off to explore the landscape spreads everyone out. The first thing you’ll see on entering is the best preserved of the temples on the East Hill, with the Acropolis to your right and the sea beyond it. It’s a stunning introductory view. 

Everyone naturally makes for the almost complete building, Temple E, first. It is in as good a shape at the temples at Agrigento but unlike the more famous site you can walk inside these. It’s a real thrill and puts the monumentality of these structures in a whole new light. Temples F and G next door are essentially just piles of rubble, but rubble you can touch, wander amongst and scramble over. Standing next to a column capital that’s wider across than you are tall gives you profound respect for ancient builders. The back temple, G, was the largest in the world when it was under construction, and a walk around its remaining platform is awe inspiring. Sadly, this potential wonder of the world was destroyed before it was ever completed thanks to those invading Carthaginians.

From there, we took the golf carts over to the other end of the site to see more clusters of temples on Gaggera hill. You need a bit of imagination to get a sense of the glory of the place, but the descriptive panels and the audio guide (an extra charge but worth it) help you to pick out the sacrificial altar, spot the sluices where water ran through the site and the channels on which the temples’ massive bronze doors slid. Only people who’ve bought into the transport tend to get this far and we were alone in the complex for quite a while, no sound except the crashing of the surf on the beach below.

Then we came back to what was the city’s acropolis, sitting high on a hill that had been sheathed in stone walls. Several still exist. There, you’ll see more temples … the central one features an impressive set of standing columns, though isn’t a complete rectangle … plus the remains of theatres, shops and houses. Architectural historians believe they’ve found evidence of the world’s first circular staircase here. There are some boards in Italian and English but if you want to really grasp subtle points like that it’s best to add the audio guide onto your entry ticket.

For the best understanding of the site, however, you’re going to have to add on a visit to the Palermo Archaeological Museum 75 miles away. The best preserved temple sculptures and hundreds of artefacts unearthed in excavations are stored here, as well as some excellent models, graphics and descriptions that bring Selinunte at its height to life. 

In one of the courtyards they show off a row of lion’s head waterspouts from one temple and also feature several copies painted as they would have been when the temple was in use. 

There’s also an excellent AI headset you can try on to take a walk through the complete temples at their height. There’s only one, but as almost nobody goes to this museum it’s unlikely you’ll have to wait. It’s a shame this stuff isn’t in an interpretive centre down in Selinunte, as it would make a visit even more meaningful and I suspect few tourists actually do both. But those who make the effort to see both will come away with something similar to seeing Pompeii or Herculaneum in conjunction with the archaeological museum in Naples. 

I had also planned a wander around Segesta, conveniently located between Palermo Airport and our hotel outside of Mazara del Vallo. A 90-minute queue to pick up the hire car (Avis/Budget in Palermo Airport NOT recommended) ate into our sightseeing time. When we got there … further off the highway and down far more winding roads that you’d think from the map … we realised that there would be a hefty hike involved to get up to the temple. But there was a rather brilliant view from the car park. And so, dear readers, your reporter failed you, opting for cocktails at the hotel rather than in depth sightseeing. The theatre here, further up the hills and not visible from the road, will have to remain a mystery. 

Our short excursion allows me to observe three things. If you’re basing yourself out of Palermo and want to get a taste of the Sicilian Greek world, this is the most logical day trip and the temple here is impressive enough to satisfy most people. The view from the road is dramatic enough that it’s worth the half hour detour off the motorway to take a look; you can get some great photos without going in. If you are going to explore, however, this is a place for stout walking shoes and lots of energy.

Whichever you opt for, seeing some Greek ruins is an essential part of touring Sicily. They’re an important part of the island’s history and one of the many factors that make it different from the rest of Italy.

Extreme Sicily can challenge and delight: here’s an itinerary to balance the wonder with R&R

Someone once explained to me that Italy gets more extreme the further south you go. If, by Rome, your nerves are a bit on edge from the noise, the traffic and the queue cutting, if the contrast between opulence and grime is grating, if you’re feeling over-stuffed by food and wine … it might be time to stop. If, however, life is just seeming brighter, the sights more magnificent and the dinners ever better, press on. On until, as far south as you can go before you hit Africa, you reach Sicily.

Sicily feels like everything Italian … the good and the bad … distilled to its most powerful essence.

It is incredibly ancient compared to the rest of Italy: the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Greeks all lived here. Want to see some of the best Greek ruins in the world? Forget the Acropolis, come here. Every building in Sicily is built on the bones of past ages, and most of them seem to be crumbling. Even the new ones.

Other than for a few hundred years of glory in the early Middle Ages, the island has been a colony rather than its own boss. The nationalities of the absentee landlords might have changed, but in turns they abused, ignored and siphoned off resources. (Very occasionally, as with whoever built the Villa Romana del Casale, they fell in love with the place and ploughed their own resources into improving it. But this was the exception.) Many Sicilians, including m ancestors, argued that Italian unification was simply another foreign invasion; now the abuse came from Savoy, then Rome, rather than Madrid. Colonial overlords … and the mafia brutes that took advantage of their distance … drove Sicily to such a state that when emigration became a viable possibility for the average person, vast numbers of its people went elsewhere. A vast, empty countryside scattered with abandoned houses is a vision of modern Sicily.

Extremes, age and colonial exploitation have created a place that’s both Italian and distinctly alien. Many places in Sicily remind me more of Tunisia or South Africa than Tuscany or the Veneto. Tourism in Sicily can be challenging. While gleaming new motorways are a testimony to EU improvement projects, local roads can be an adventure. Visual clues that usually tell you “turn around, you’re in a dangerous neighbourhood” don’t work the same way here; a dark alley full of graffiti and rubbish can host upscale jewellery shops or magnificent Baroque oratories. UNESCO heritage town centres are surrounded by hideous, often collapsing post-war housing. Cultural attractions can be light on English explanations; my basic Italian gets used here far more than in the north. And yet, if you love culture, history and food … the foundations of this blog … Sicily delivers rewards out of all proportion to the effort you put in. There is no place else in Europe quite like it.

I decided on two weeks here to celebrate my 60th birthday and our 13th wedding anniversary. (Marrying on your birthday is an excellent way to ensure neither of you ever forget your anniversary.) I wanted something indulgent and celebratory. Something that offered loads of top quality sightseeing with proper R&R and tremendous food. Opera at Palermo’s Teatro Massimo and cooking class with a Duchess in her palazzo was the icing on the cake.

Our itinerary went like this:

Days 1 - 5: Almar Giardino di Costanza, near Mazara del Vallo
The idea was to start the holiday with some restorative pamper time. We flew into Palermo and picked up a car at the airport. Unfortunately, our 90-minute queue at Avis/Budget/Maggiore took only a little less time than our whole drive south. The delay was so extreme we had to modify our plans to visit the Greek ruins at Segesta and content ourselves with a drive by. Which, to be honest, is still quite impressive and offers great photo opportunities without paying for admission.

The hotel is one of those Sicilian contrasts: a lush and luxurious walled complex surrounded by the dry, dusty, ruin- and rubbish-filled agricultural outskirts of Mazara. The few miles between motorway and hotel will make you wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into; once you’re through the gates you’re in another world. An old agricultural estate has been repurposed as luxury hotel and spa. The building is a big white and yellow “U” surrounding gardens, pools and fountains. We upgraded to a pool/garden view, which gave us an enormous balcony with table, chairs and sun loungers. The bedroom featured towering ceilings, an enormous television, arm chairs for watching, and a cheerful bouquet springing from a traditional Sicilian head vase to wish me happy birthday and anniversary. (A cake with burning candle also showed up on the actual day.) The basement … part of it opening onto the lowest level of the garden … features an upscale restaurant and a high-end spa. There’s an indoor swimming pool, hot and cold bathing tubs, saunas, steam rooms, and relaxation rooms all designed in a modern take on Arab-Norman architecture.

In short, it’s the kind of place you don’t really have any need or desire to leave. Even the private beach, accessible by hotel shuttle for morning or afternoon stints, didn’t seem worth the effort. Lots of things on my local possibilities list fell to the competition of napping to spa music and lounging in hot water, namely Trapani and Erice. But a few sightseeing excursions did demand the effort: the Greek ruins at Selinunte, the Greek statue of “the dancing Satyr” in Mazara del Vallo, a look at the salt flats above Marsala and a tasting of that town’s eponymous wine at Florio.

Days 5 - 6: Villa Trigona, Piazza Armerina
The next major stop in the itinerary was the Val di Noto, which would have been a straight 4-hour drive along the southwest coast of Sicily had we gone direct. But a date with a bucket list item demanded a detour. About 40 years ago Professor Jim Packer beguiled me with his Art and Architecture of Ancient Rome class at Northwestern, and his descriptions of the Villa Romana del Casale in the Sicilian Countryside have haunted me ever since. It was worth the detour. (More to come on that in a future article.)

We spent the night at another old agricultural estate turned to tourism. The Villa Trigona isn’t as big or as high-end as the Almar, but it was correspondingly less expensive. The family still owns and runs the place and has done a major renovation in the past few years, so venerable architectural details sit comfortably with fresh plaster and sheet glass walls of modern extensions. Our room, however, was 19th century in all but its electrification: old school wooden furniture, beautiful bed linens, decorative floor tiles, whispy curtains screening french doors to Juliet balconies that looked out over the surrounding woodlands and mountains and down into the front courtyard of the estate house. Another set of French doors led out to our own roof terrace. It was almost a shame to only be here just one night. The family offers dinner in that modern extension. It was hearty and delicious if not memorable, but we were grateful to be able to eat in. Villa Trigona is off winding, mountainous roads 10 minutes from Piazza Armerina that I wouldn’t have enjoyed navigating after dark, and there’s nothing in walking distance. 

Days 6 - 11: Melifra, Ispica
Next came five full days enjoying the Val di Noto, proclaimed a UNESCO world heritage site because of its baroque architecture. All the guidebooks will tell you about the 1693 earthquake that flattened southeastern Sicily, and how the towns in the area rebuilt in a florid Baroque style that makes them gems of the architectural world. What they probably won’t mention is that these exquisite town centres are ringed by large and unattractive sprawls of modern development, that the Val is thick with modern industry and commercial agriculture, and that it’s a harsh landscape of pockmarked limestone peaks and scrubby brush with lots of winding roads between points A and B. This is not the charming hill towns of Tuscany.

The towns, however, are worth the effort. Noto is the most famous and therefore the most crowded; I enjoyed Scicli and Ragusa Ibla (top photo) much more. The Baroque heart of Modica was much bigger than anticipated, and the large crowds socialising on the streets at 11 pm on a Saturday testified to the fact this is a modern, living town, not just a tourist destination. We were there not for the late-night passeggiata but for dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant, Accursio, that was one of the highlights of the trip. If you get sick of Baroque towns, there are beaches and a nature reserve where migrating birds … notably flamingoes … pause during their spring and autumn migrations. There will be more all of that in articles to come. 

We stayed in an AirB&B rental called Melifra that was absolutely ideal. It’s on the edge of a modern development on the outskirts of Ispica (this one, unusually, rather attractive … though still cursed with the Sicilian plague of unfinished or unkempt properties, like rotting teeth in the middle of an otherwise gleaming smile). While not usually listed amongst the highlights of the Val di Noto, Ispica has the same baroque heart as its neighbours with a handful of standout buildings. For us, however, its greatest advantages were that it sat in the middle of everything we wanted to see, and the views to the sea are quite spectacular. Even more so when you’re sitting in the hot tub in the roof garden at Melifra, glass of cold local wine in your hand while watching the sunset.

Melifra occupies the top floor of a three-story townhouse at the end of a block; access is up a dramatic winding staircase with a glass roof above. There are two bedrooms, each en suite, and a combined sitting room/kitchen dining area, but the crown jewel is undoubtably that roof garden. In addition to the hot tub there’s a shower, two loungers, a sofa, coffee table and chairs, and a large TV pre-programmed with all the streaming services (you will need your own password to sign in). Someone with highly-attuned interior design sensibilities has been at work here; colour schemes, decorative items, rugs and art have all been selected to complement a single colour scheme.

It was as tasteful as a luxury hotel, but all ours. Hosts Gianfranco and Barbara were fantastic, establishing a WhatsApp group for us for the duration of our stay, flooding us with useful information and responding quickly when we needed information.

I quickly got into the habit of sightseeing during the day, nice lunch out, then back to Melifra for a soak in the hot tub. We’d spend the evenings in the outdoor seating area, nibbling a light dinner, drinking local wine and working our way through “The Rings of Power”. The dramatic landscape here seemed to fit a foray into Middle Earth.

There were only two flies in the Melifra ointment. If you are very tall, this apartment built under the eves may present a hazard. It’s beautifully designed, with skylights with automatic blinds in the roof that can flood the space with sunlight, but my husband whacked his head multiple times before he got used to stooping at the sides of rooms. You’re also about 3/4 of a mile from the town centre so it’s not really easy walking distance for going out. We only went out for dinner once and were preferred the extreme quiet, but this might be an issue for others.

Days 11- 15: L’Olivella B&B, Palermo
Palermo can be hard work: it’s magnificent and exciting, but also noisy and dirty. If Sicily is like the concentrated essence of Italy, Palermo is the further distillation of Sicily. I thought I’d put it at the end of our agenda for when we were well-rested and had grown accustomed to the pace of the island. I also opted for the humblest of our accommodations here, figuring we’d had our luxury and would spend less time “at home” in the city.

L’Olivella is closer to what used to be called a “pensione”: you take one of a suite of rooms let out in your landlady’s house, there’s a modest sitting room, all the guests sharing a table at breakfast and then you’re unlikely to get a glimpse of your host or the other guests until the next morning. The whole place has towering ceilings with a few retaining some lovely frescoes that look to be from the 1930s. The floors are tiled with a beautiful array of Liberty Style (the Italian take on Art Nouveau) patterns. Our bedroom, Lingotto, was generously sized with French doors letting in light from two sides of the building: one side with a tiny balcony just big enough for two chairs and a narrow table. The location is superb. From our balcony we looked into the windows of the archaeological museum. The opera house loomed above the end of the street, between us and its front door were 200 metres of restaurants and artisan shops. A 10 minute stroll took us to Quattro Canti, the sightseeing heart of town.

We had two prime objectives in Palermo: Turandot at the opera and a very special cooking class in a palace in the Kalsa district. We’d already seen the Palatine Chapel and the cathedral and Monreale on a previous trip, so we were free with the rest of our time to explore some of the “Tier Two” sites. I spent a lot of time drinking in outrageous Baroque religious interiors, notably the oratories of Serpotta and the Jesuit church known as the Casa Professoressa. Honouring that rare and wonderful period in Sicilian history when it was the intellectual and artistic heart of Europe, I revelled in the mosaics in La Martorana and the Arab-Norman lines of San Cataldo. Yes, it was very church heavy!

We also spent a very happy morning poking around the Archaeological Museum, which is mostly distinguished by having the best bits of Selinunte under cover. In many ways it’s a shame that this stuff isn’t on site there, as the displays here explain the ruins far better than anything in Selinunte, and the treasures they’ve preserved really bring the place to life. This museum experience towards the end of our trip made our explorations at the beginning even more meaningful.

I could have done so much more. There was a museum of Sicilian tiles on my list, and a day trip to Cefalù. I was disappointed to discover that the traditional puppet shows only happen on weekends, and we were only in town for weekdays. The weather was exquisite and we could have headed to Mondello beach. But it was the end of the trip and we were mindful that we wanted to head home relaxed and refreshed. So multiple-hour, multiple-course lunches with multiple bottles of wine featured more prominently than high-impact sightseeing. About all that food, of course, there are articles ahead.

In coming weeks I’ll cover key sites, food and experiences. This gives you context and big picture for a two-week Italian itinerary I’d happily recommend, and do again.

The Veneto is all about the villas, including aristocratic B&B

Understanding Venice without exploring the Veneto is like claiming you’ve toured England when you haven’t left London, or insisting you’ve seen the States when you haven’t ventured away from the coasts.

Yet I suspect the majority of tourists ticking Venice off their must see list don’t even what the Veneto is, much less have plans to visit it.

First things first. Veneto in modern language is one of the 20 official regions of Italy; it’s the state over which Venice is the capital. For centuries, when Venice ruled sea lanes and possessed a far-flung empire, the Veneto was the homeland that supplied food, wine, people and breathing space to the imperial city. The Veneto is home to several towns famous in their own right … Verona, Vicenza, Padua … and offers sporty types both the glories of Lake Garda and the ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo. Wine lovers find delight here in the Ring of Prosecco. If you share my love of architecture and art history, there’s one thing that tops any list of Veneto attractions: villas.

The city of Venice is where the money got made, but Venice was … and still is … both crowded and brutally hot in the summer. The rich got out. Most of them headed for the foothills of the mountains, where the air was cooler and breezes more frequent. In the mid 1500s, anyone who was anyone hired one Andrea Palladio to build their country house. Given that a line of his masterworks was studded between our stay on Mazzorbo and the wedding we were attending in Trento, I couldn’t miss the chance for a visit.

The day’s objective was the Villa Barbaro, also known as the Villa di Maser. I’d seen it many years ago but wanted to return. I remembered it as my favourite of all the Palladian villas I’ve seen. It has all the characteristics you expect: the restrained, elegant classicism; the clever architecture designed to capture breezes and filter light; great views; an accumulation of a few centuries of aristocratic Italian furnishings, cheerful frescoes. The last are what make the Villa Barbaro so exceptional. While arguably the world’s most influential architect designed the building, one of the age’s greatest painters did the walls. It’s one hell of a double act. Most experts consider this Paolo Veronese’s best cycle of frescoes, and it still delivers room after room of pure joy. (I suspect they’ve been restored since I first saw them, as their pastel candy glory is almost eye watering.)

The villa is somewhat unusual in shape: a long axial spine with a central wing jutting forward and two side wings pushing back from the ends. From the air it looks a bit like a boxy, squashed letter “Y”, but from the front you only see that long arcade with a temple-like, pedimented mass coming out from the middle. It’s framed with formal gardens on each side and the classic Palladian staircase flanked with classical sculpture coming down from the middle. One assumes all these rich and powerful Venetians found it richly satisfying to live in buildings that look like places where gods were honoured and worshipped.

Your approach along the spine immediately demonstrates the genius of the place: you’re in a logia under arches two stories high, offering you cool shade and a place from which to survey the vineyards stretching below. On the left edge of your vision, Palladio treats you to the dome of the family chapel, a miniature version of his grand churches in Venice. The high walls behind you catch and disperse the breeze. Where this arcade intersects with the centre clock of the house there’s a grand staircase up to the “piano nobile”. At the top, you enter into the main reception room. It’s flooded with light, yet kept cool by marble floors and an abundance of tall windows. These weren’t open … I suspect they’re more careful about humidity with the paintings these days … but you can see how everything is designed to stay cool. 

At the back of this long cross-section is a rare example of a Palladian-designed garden feature. A curving arcade carved as a grotto with sea creatures and mythological beings frames a water feature. It’s all built close up against a rising hillside full of trees. It not only looks good; it would have been another strategy to keep the temperatures down in the house.

Inside, every room offers a playful mix of Veronese’s pastoral landscapes, people and military equipment. All are at least partially in the Trompe-l'œil or “fool the eye” style. The landscapes look like you’ve stumbled upon another window, and have found a new view of what lies outside. The lances and flags look like they’ve been abandoned in corners by conquering heroes just home from the front. 

Servants peep out doors. The family gazes down in benevolent welcome. A pet spaniel waits for a treat. And those are just the walls. Look up and you get a panoply of classical gods doing whatever frolicking is appropriate for the room below: eating, making wine, making love. Toward the back of that main hall you can look down an enfilade of rooms on each side, filling that main axis of the house. A painting at the end of one hall is a life sized self-portrait of Veronese seemingly striding in your direction. On the other end, at the far side of the house, is his wife … smiling at him, and you, across the centuries. 

Having great art hanging on a wall is one thing, but being completely surrounded by it so you feel you’re inside of it is something completely different. I suspect that Veronese would have been very excited to play with virtual reality environments, because he created one here in 1560.

After marvelling at the artistic masterpiece of one aristocratic villa, we were off to stay in another.

Villa Stecchini isn’t by Palladio but follows that same tradition of gracious, aristocratic country piles. Its architecture isn’t as showy: a big, traditional block with an arcaded service wing forming an “L”. to one side, a family chapel to the other and a large, rectangular formal water feature out front fed by a statue of Neptune standing over a cheerfully gurgling cascade. Lawns stretch out in every direction, a few pens of farm animals entertain children, vegetable plots and fruit trees supply the table. Ducks, peacocks and a few genial old family dogs stroll at will. It’s hard to believe it’s not another admission-charging attraction but no … it’s a B&B.

There are seven different suites integrated seamlessly into the fabric of the house. Other than a guest book and some business cards on the central hall table, there’s no sign that you’re in a commercial establishment. The ground floor greets you with an enormous hall dominated by an exquisite Venetian chandelier and decorated with big paintings of other country estates that were once under the family’s ownership. Your hostess Carlotta doesn’t have a title, but she greets you with the genial grace with which the contessas in her family tree would have directed great balls. Up a dignified Renaissance stair lies another hall on the same floor plan, this one hung with fascinating scenes of the great set pieces of the Venetian year, like Carnevale and the ceremonial marriage of the Doge to the sea. You’ll also notice a collection of small, lovely sculptures in white marble. Turns out Canova was a local, this family supported his workshop and these are maquettes he used to teach his apprentices. Balconies at either end of the room offer dramatic views on Neptune’s pond on one side, olive groves, countryside and the foothills of the mountains on the other. 

 Our suite was off this hall. It’s named the Lyric Room after Carlotta’s great grandmother, an opera singer whose programme from her appearance at La Fenice hangs outside. The furniture is grand but comfortable, the decor carrying on the stately look of the halls. I had to check to make sure they hadn’t stolen Veronese’s hunting dogs from the Louvre; a convincing reproduction hangs above the bed and was a happy link to the day’s earlier wonders. A top quality mattress and decent pillows made for an enormous improvement on the sleep quality at Venissa over the three preceding nights.

This is the kind of place you just want to linger and drink it all in. We arrived mid-afternoon rather than pushing on for additional sightseeing (you could easily see the Villa Emo on the same day as Barbaro), I spent the time sitting quietly in the garden next to the water feature, communing with the ducks and trying to capture the villa in the fading light.Though the town of Bassano is nearby and full of dining options, we delighted in the realisation that we didn’t have to leave. The family runs a small trattoria in the wine cellars under the house (where you also have your breakfast). We enjoyed a beautiful spread of ham, cheese, oil and bread, followed by a pear and walnut risotto that we decided we needed to try back home with … heresy no doubt … perhaps a finishing touch of blue cheese. Uncharacteristically, we surrendered after two courses. The unending waves of food were doing even my prodigious appetite in.

One of Carlotta’s team did, however, talk us into a glass of mead before bed. I think of mead as a Viking and Anglo-Saxon tradition, but evidently there’s a history of mead making in this honey-producing region, and the family is trying to bring it back. Most mead I’ve had is too thick. Too sweet. Like drinking the mineral waters at Bath, it’s an entertaining nod to history but not something you want to incorporate into modern life. Not this stuff. It’s complex. Elegant. Subtle notes of spices with the sweetness of a very light desert wine. We were blown away and promptly bought a bottle. Had we driven, we would have bought a case. It was the best thing I drank all week. (Given the parade of spritzes I samples, that’s a big statement.)

I savoured another walk around the grounds the next morning, delighting in the way the original garden designers worked the water in to the garden so channels flow from one level to another offering the sound of fountains from most places, even if you can’t see the water. Ripe figs were there for picking off the trees. Tomatoes glowed red on their vines. The mountains in the distance were a deep blue green, not yet bleached by the day’s heat haze. It was all quite idyllic.

But, sadly, it was only a one-night stop. We had a wedding to get to, so moved on after breakfast. It’s worth noting, however, that there is an enormous amount to see in this area and the Villa Stecchini would be an ideal place to spend multiple nights. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of “Vicenza and the Palladian Villas” includes 23 Palladian buildings in that town, less than 40 minutes away, and 24 villas in the surrounding area. (Read my story on Vicenza and the Villa Rotonda here.) That’s enough to keep any culture vulture busy for a while, especially since several villas are attached to modern vineyards offering tastings. Villa Di Maser (Barbaro) is one. My next stop with more time would have been Villa Angarano with a winery run by five sisters.  

If you get tired of aristocratic houses, Villa Stecchini’s closest town of Bassano is the world centre of grappa production. It offers a tasting experience every few shop fronts, with yet another charmingly historic town centre. It has a famously gorgeous bridge over the river Brenta that’s also a milestone in civic engineering. It’s Palladio again, this time turning his genius to surviving floods rather than capturing breezes. The Brenta turns into a raging torrent in the spring and eventually wiped out the pillars of every bridge built. Palladio figured out that a series of thin, blade-like supports would be strong enough to hold up the span while insubstantial enough to let the water through with little resistance. And so a covered wooden bridge as venerable as the one in Lucerne is held aloft on a design that looks as modern as a Norman Foster building. 

Villa Stecchini is just over an hour from either Verona or Venice airport, offering a sophisticated and easy weekend break from the UK full of such “off the beaten track” pleasures. Rooms range from €85 to €170, with the larger ones accommodating up to five people. It’s an aristocratic experience for an amazingly modest price.

Atmospheric Torcello offers a unique calm; just defend against the killer mozzies

Torcello is a ghost town. It may be lacking the tumbleweed and swinging saloon doors that typically come with that description, but it shares the same sense of sad dereliction and failed potential triggered by the abandoned towns of the American West. They, however, don't have world-class Byzantine mosaics in their derelict buildings. 

Torcello is romantic, beautiful, and ... if you get your timing right ... one of the few places in the Venetian lagoon where you can experience a sense of splendid isolation.

If you’d visited in tenth century, this would have been the busiest place in the whole lagoon, with at least 3,000 residents, grand palazzi, 12 parishes, a thriving ecosystem of 16 religious houses and flourishing trade routes going back to Roman times. When invaders threatened from the east, the citizens of Torcello scouted out islands deeper into the lagoon for greater safety, eventually founding what we know as Venice. Slowly, but surely, they left their original island home behind, taking what they could move with them and abandoning what they couldn't. 

Today, the island is mostly agricultural, with fewer than 20 full-time inhabitants who pop over to Burano … five minutes across a watery channel … to do their grocery shopping. I was on the morning boat with one of them. Current residents include at least two artists who open their studios by appointment, and there's a long history of creatives seeking refuge here.

 Both Hemingway and du Maurier came here to write and included Torcello in their novels. A canal, still well-maintained despite the lack of population, cuts through the island just as others bisect Venice and Murano. There are sill picturesque bridges and a handful of buildings, but there are also abundant views down waterways between vineyards, orchards and grazing fields.

A 10-minute walk from the water bus dock (line 9 spends the day going back and forth between Burano and Torcello) brings you to what was once the town centre. If you are here before 10:30 you may very well be on your own except for a few locals collecting tourist admission fees and manning souvenir stands. Torcello is most often done as a day trip from Venice, combined with Burano and even Murano, and is inevitably the last stop of the day. I didn’t see anything you could call a crowd until after 2pm, when I was thinking about heading off.

Aside from the moody dereliction, most foreign visitors are here to see the inside of the cathedral. Its simple walls protect a mosaic treasure on par with the more famous work down in Ravenna. Mary holds a baby Jesus in the apse above a main altar that looks more like a Roman ruin than a Christian church.The 12 apostles stand beneath her, each a masterpiece of Byzantine craftsmanship. The side altars are slightly newer and more elaborate. 

The real masterpiece is on the western wall around the original door, however, where Christ sits in judgement and cartoon-style registers tell the story of the saved and the damned. 

As ever with medieval art, hell is much more interesting than heaven and I wish the included audio guide went into more detail about the figures that fiends were poking in the flames. My guess is that they were 12th century bad guys; one looked like he might have been part of an Islamic threat, while another had the look of an “anti-pope”. The guide did explain how the Seven Deadly Sins were represented in the lowest two levels; the vision of gluttons forced to find sustenance by gnawing off their own limbs is enough to put you right off your dinner. Over on the positive side of the ledger, it is lovely to see a zoo’s worth of friendly animals being resurrected with the virtuous dead. Clearly these mosaicists felt we’d need pets in heaven.

All of these scenes, front and back, are played out on a rich background of gold. I find it reassuring, somehow, that the exact same techniques of fusing gold onto glass to make the component parts of these masterpieces are still being used today to make jewellery, art glass and posh wine bottles. 

Beside the main church you’ll find a series of picturesque loggias and the octagonal church of St. Fosca. In front of the cathedral and across a little square from St. Fosca is a round water feature, unusually set into the front of the church as if they were built together. I couldn’t find any information on this on site but would guess it's the ruins of an old baptistery. I was charmed enough to sit here for more than an hour drawing St. Fosca and its loggia, never considering the idiocy of lingering next to a pool of stagnant water in a marsh. I was wearing mosquito repellant but the Italian blood-suckers laughed at the inefficiency of my British formula. The next morning the first of more than 50 viscous mosquito bites started rising into blisters. I only survived the rest of the trip my slathering myself with copious amounts of a wonder product called DopoPuntura, and did my best to avoid photos at the wedding we were attending because my arms and feet looked like I had chicken pox. Or worse.

Thankfully I decided to wander a bit rather than adding water colour from that position, or the damage would have been worse.

Just across from the church is the private residence and vineyard of an antique dealer who’s also a part owner of our hotel, Venissa. This is where the vines they’re repatriating on Mazzorbo were discovered. The house and gardens were closed to the public but there are plenty of picturesque photo opps. Just beyond that, across what must have once been Torcello’s main piazza, are a couple of old civic buildings that now house the island’s museum.

There’s a pleasing jumble of bits and pieces here, from the ancient Romans to the baroque with most of stuff from Torcello’s brief, early medieval period in the sun. Assembled by the island’s owner and amateur archaeologists in the late 19th and early 20th century, it’s quite an old-fashioned and quirky collection. There's not much information and no modern attempts at interactive storytelling. I enjoyed it, but doing so probably does require a good base of knowledge to understand what you're looking at. I felt a sinister thrill of terror, for example, when I stumbled upon the two old Bocca di Leone. But it was only my wider reading … most notably Philippa Gregory’s Tidelands trilogy … that gave me the backstory. This is the downside of the exceptionally loose form of democracy that ruled in this lagoon. Government was actually a mostly benevolent dictatorship with ruthless secret police. The lion's mouths covered official post boxes that allowed you to denounce your neighbours anonymously if you thought they were up to no good. There was little legal protection if you got on the wrong side of people in power. Just a knock in the night and disappearing, perhaps never to be heard from again. 

Bigger pieces of sculpture are scattered across the lawn and leaned against the walls outside, like an architectural salvage yard. Most notable is the so-called “Attila’s Throne” … which actually has nothing to do with the marauding hun whose 5th-century threats first drove the population to the defensive possibilities of the lagoon. Historian’s now think it was probably the seat of government for whoever was in charge in Torcello. You can see it, and sit on it, without paying for admission into the museum.

There are three ticketed attractions on the island; the church, the bell tower and the museum. The church is a must. The tower no doubt has spectacular views over neighbouring Burano and Mazzorbo, on to Murano and the skyline of Venice beyond, but it was far too hot and humid for me to consider such exertion. Pleasant as it is, tourists in a hurry probably won’t find the museum worth their while. But if you’re the kind of tourist who's in a hurry, I’d suggest you’re probably not going to bother with Torcello. This is a place for dawdling.

While the foreigners head for the historic sites, the Italians seem to have a different idea of the island. There are three restaurants scattered along the canal between dock and cathedral, all of them with menus that lean towards multi-course fine dining. (One, currently closed for renovation, appears to be a branch of Venice’s favourite Cipriani.) The dress code is still casual and the tables sprawled under vine-covered pergolas or shady marquees, looking out over gardens. The patrons, however, were clearly there for serious dining rather than a quick bite between tourist stops. I get the feeling Italians see Torcello as a picturesque place to go for a long al-fresco lunch. 

There is one place more like a snack bar and rough beer garden, called La Taverna Tipica Veneziana, where those not interested in a big meal congregate. It’s the one closest to the boat dock, has cold beer on tap and clean bathrooms. It’s here that I settled down to paint my take on St. Fosca, unwittingly saving my skin from further attack. Every 15 minutes from around 2pm a new crowd of about 60 tourists marched by on their way to the town square. I drank my beer, watched them go by and smiled at how packed the church I’d sat in almost alone earlier in the morning must be. It was clearly time to go home. I suspect the last boats of the day get uncomfortably crowded. But I remained ahead of the rest, and was back at Venissa enjoying a spritz before the crowd would have left Torcello abandoned once again.

Venissa falls a bit short of its promise, but is still a worthy choice for a memorable Venetian stay

As a high-concept project, Venissa Wine Resort is fascinating. As a reality for eating, drinking and sleeping, it still has some work to do.

Let’s start with the positives. Its Michelin-starred restaurant is worth building a trip around, its bedrooms offer a comfortable off-the-beaten track base for exploring the Venetian lagoon, and its vineyard is driving a truly fascinating experiment in wine. However ... the wine is no match for others at its elevated price point, the rooms and staffing fall below what you'd expect from the word "resort" or the luxurious promise of their website, and dining at their osteria (a simpler alternative to their restaurant) was disappointing.

WINE

If you’re a wine lover, you can’t help but be intrigued by what they’re trying to do here. A series of modern floods had wiped out the grape variety native to the lagoon. Or so everyone thought. In the early ‘00s Venissa’s owner discovered remnants of those vines on Torcello and decided to try to replant a vineyard on Mazzorbo to make the traditional wine of the lagoon. Yes, you can grow grapes in what is essentially a salt marsh. This is the lowest altitude vineyard in the world. But it only works if you grow a local variety that’s evolved over the centuries to cope with the conditions; shallow soil, occasional flooding and a lot of salt in air and ground. The Dorona grapes are fat and golden, thick skinned and intensely sweet, but you don't have to be an expert to see that this isn’t a heavy cropper. Given that we were on the brink of harvest, and the only source of fruit was the vineyard next to the hotel, it's easy to see why this wine is a rare and expensive thing.

For €65 per person you can get a guided tour of the vineyard and taste four wines … two whites from Venissa’s grapes and two reds of their production from grapes grown in another vineyard in the Lagoon. I found this a better way to understand and sample the wine than taking a punt on the unknown label at €35 a glass from the hotel bar. Our host Luca settled us in to Venissa’s blissfully air-conditioned wine shop to take us through the details of the project. The same Dorona grapes in the same vineyard produce two varieties; the super premium Venissa that develops on its skin for four weeks before aging for at least four years (around €130 a bottle, varying slightly with vintage), and the slightly less lofty Venusa (still €70 a bottle). The Venissa bottles are as precious as what’s in them; hand blown to reflect Venice’s glass making tradition with a label of 24-carat gold fused into the glass and then etched. Each Venissa vintage is distinguished by a different shape of the the golden fusion.

The marketing, design and story make a compelling combination for any lover of wine. And the taste? Citrusy, dry, some notes of spice, pleasantly complex. I couldn’t distinguish that much of a difference … certainly not a double-the-price difference … between the Venissa and Venusa. There are few wines I’d be willing to spend this much money on and, for my tastes, there are plenty in moderate price ranges that could match this flavour profile. The reds were Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon blends that drank more like sophisticated pinot noirs; light and full of strawberry and violet but with potential for more complex vanilla and tobacco to emerge. Again, pleasant but at a very high price point for what it is, even if the better one continues with the special bottling art, here fusing copper into the glass instead of gold. and pleasant, You’re paying for the experience and the education, however, rather than tasting to buy, and for that it's a worthy excursion.

FOOD

Probably most successful on the experience front at Venissa is its restaurant, awarded a Michelin star for its food and another Michelin green star for its sustainability. The guide introduced its new sustainability award in 2021 and the save-the-planet vibes are the most distinctive thing about Venissa the restaurant. It isn’t vegan, but it is extremely vegetable heavy and everything comes from in, or very close to, the Venetian lagoon. All producers, naturally, are organic. All the proteins on your plate come from invasive species that are hurting the lagoon and its native species. Eating them helps return balance to the environment. Examples include large-mouth bass, imported from America as a sporting catch and now threatening the local fish with their voracious appetites, and blue crab from Asia that arrived along with the ballast in international ships. 

While green positioning had the potential to become overly preachy, the worthiness disappears beneath an onslaught of exquisite food that’s a feast for the eyes and the taste buds. If saving the planet was always this much fun, more people would do it. 

We went for the 10-course tasting menu, manageable because most courses were just a few bites. That bass made up my favourite course; a tartare in a crisp pastry shell covered with a tapestry of vivid micro herbs. The crab was a close second, tossed with spaghetti, a hint of tomatoes from the garden and wild flowers. The ingredients might all be local but the kitchen team brings influences from around the world. There’s a good deal of Danish-inspired fermentation, distinctly North American corn cakes and hints of Japan and Southeast Asia in spicing and sauces. 

Puddings were especially surprising. I never suspected that artichoke leaves could produce something deceptively close to coffee (used in an affogato) or that you could use aubergine in a sweet; in this case as the filling in a mille-feuille. Like the inventive cep soufflé at Ekstedt at The Yard, this is another example of a flavour-carrying vegetable's ability to transform into the unexpected. 

The dining room is in a majestic, restored agricultural building with such generous spacing between the tables and so many servers taking you through your evening I had to wonder how … even at a starry €290/£250 per person for the dinner and wine flight … they were making any margin. It’s actually quite good value for money against an equivalent experience in England, and the inventiveness of the cuisine is definitely worth going out of your way for. 

The osteria also attached to the hotel is, however, a disappointment. When the same management does Michelin-starred fine dining and a casual, less expensive option, you want the two to be strikingly different. The osteria here feels like an afterthought to the restaurant, and not its own entity, serving up cheaper variations of the tastes next door but without the theatrical service. Having revelled in the vegetal invention, fascinating proteins and modern approaches, on the next evening I was ready to settle in to some traditional Venetian favourites. That's what you assume you’ll get at something called an osteria in the middle of the lagoon, but that's not what's really on offer. While it might have been less expensive than the night before, it was really just a pale imitation of what we'd already done. At £90 per person for dinner and drinks we’re confident we could have done better with a 10-minute walk over to Burano for some heartier, simpler cuisine. (We didn't manage to bring in Burano's Il Gatto Nero, our favourite meal of the trip, under this price point, but that's because we had an embarrassingly profligate evening. With more modest ordering and drinking, you could easily beat the Venissa Osteria's pricing there.)

STAY

The third element of our Venissa experience was the stay itself. This is a “restaurant with rooms”, something I suspect is essential to running a Michelin-starred eatery here as the only transport is by boat, the public water buses stop running before dinner’s end and a private taxi back to Venice will add 30% to your dining bill. You might as well just stay. There are five rooms here and 15 under the same management in houses a short walk away on Burano. (Most of our fellow diners were Italian, but I doubt any were local to the islands.)  

We loved the location next to the vineyard, 50 metres from the Mazzorbo water bus stop and a 10-minute walk to Burano. It’s the only tourist business on this tiny island, so it really feels like going local. The whole place is quiet and relaxing. While the osteria didn't impress us at dinner its location ... essentially a large, screened pavilion next to the vines ... made for a hugely picturesque breakfast spot.

The views from our room over a canal to a couple of miniature palazzi were fabulous, and the air conditioning was fantastically efficient. (It was 30c every day and extremely humid, so that last bit was critical.) But by branding themselves a “wine resort” with a website screaming luxury they were making promises they can’t keep. With so few rooms this is, understandably, not staffed as a hotel would be and there’s often no staff around. The experience is more AirB&B than hotel. Admittedly, for just under €200 a night it’s not luxury pricing, so it's less a complaint than an observation about perception versus reality. But I still would have expected better mattress and pillow quality. The 3-star business hotel my husband stays in during his working week charges a third of the price offers a much better night’s sleep on bedding that feels far more luxurious. In the bathroom, water pressure is poor and anyone approaching 6 feet will have to crouch beneath the shower head to get clean. The last isn’t a surprise in an old property, and may have something to do with their green credentials, but but again isn’t in tune with the promise of the hospitality they’re marketing. 

Bottom Line: If you’re a foodie, I’d definitely recommend the Michelin-starred dining experience. If you're eating here it’s worth the convenience of staying over the restaurant. Just adjust your expectations for a more basic accommodation than the marketing implies. If I were to return to this part of the lagoon for more than one night, however, I’d check out other options on Burano. It's clear they are limited, however, so I’d guarantee air conditioning and try to find some testimony about better beds before I gave up the relative safety of Venissa. On the wine front, I don’t think their production tastes as premium as its lofty price tag, but if you’re interested in viticulture and wine marketing it’s worth doing the wine tasting. However long you stay, don’t bother with the osteria here. Walk over to Burano for a more traditional experience, particularly at Il Gatto Nero.

Mazzorbo and Burano offer uncrowded Venetian magic; Il Gatto Nero the lagoon's best restaurant

I have been blessed to visit Venice at least once a decade since the ‘70s, when my wide-eyed 12-year-old self drank in the romance of a gondola ride in an empty canal, revelled in getting lost in back lanes and imagined the terror of being led to a prison cell over the Bridge of Sighs. And while I’ve enjoyed all the trips that followed, none were as good as that first one. That’s because, tragically, Venice has been “Patient Zero” for the ever-growing epidemic of overtourism. Each decade has brought the place a little closer to a shoulder-to-shoulder, Disney version of itself, until I swore that I was giving up. I’d treasure my memories of a better Venice, and leave La Serenissima’s modern lanes to the crowds.

But then came the opportunity to fly in and out of Marco Polo airport for a wedding we’d be attending. All over England I’d watched the masses flock to the usual suspects while nearby sights … often of equal historic and artistic significance … were almost empty. Might the same be true of the Venetian lagoon? I’d never been north of Murano, and had only been on a handful of the more than 30 inhabited islands. Could I recapture the magic of the Venice of my childhood on a neighbouring isle?

Yes.

Mazzorbo and Burano have captured my heart, and given the state of Venice these days I’d advise even first time visitors to stay here and travel into the main city for sightseeing, rather than the usual reverse day trip. Tiny Mazzorbo has a population of less than 300. On a morning stroll around the island you’ll pass locals returning from their grocery shop, and be passed by others on their morning jog before going to work. The main language in the air is actually Italian. Small as it is, the island still exists for its residents and not for the visitors who drive so much of the lagoon’s economy.

Burano, population 2,800, is more crowded and more obviously driven by tourism. But even here in high season, it’s manageable. Visitors share restaurants with locals. Shop keepers are still pleasant and willing to engage in conversation. There’s evidence of both older people and school-age children, the two groups that tend to disappear first when tourism becomes so all-pervasive it drives out everything else. If you wander around before 10 or after five, you're amongst a handful of tourists surrounded by people who actually live here.

I realise that the mere act of writing this endangers the magic I’ve found here. But these islands aren’t for everyone. They’re quiet, there are limited things to see and it’s more complicated to get here. Hotel and B&B options are limited. While there are AirB&B options, in Venice they’ve contributed to pricing locals out of the market, so they’re being watched carefully here. The effort and limited supply mean it would be a waste of time to stay here for less than two nights. And none of these locals are under any illusion: you are still a tourist and tourism still drives the economy. It’s just in better balance than the behemoth 40-minutes by ferry across the lagoon. 

We’re staying at Venissa, branded as a “wine resort” and definitely a bit of a splurge, but I’m happy with the choice. (See full review here.) A brisk stroll takes you to the tourist heart of Burano in less than 15 minutes. But turn the other way, and explore the rest of Mazzorbo rather than crossing the bridge, and you’ll discover an island almost entirely residential. I only spotted one other restaurant outside of the confines of Venissa. The views are exceptional. There are pretty canals lined with colourful houses, farm fields, and long views off the island towards the marsh, other islands and the majestic towers of Venice on the southern horizon. 

To the north, the outline of almost-deserted Torcello beckons. On a weekday, the aquatic traffic alternates between the water bus line coming up from Venice and the delivery boats that bring much of the islands’ everyday needs, but on Sunday they were full of Italian families out on small boats for a day of fun.

Neighbouring Burano’s claim to modern fame is its colour scheme. It’s one of the most colourful places on earth, with every house painted a different shade with white window frames to make them pop. Nobody’s going for subtle earth tones here: vivid purples, electric blues, Barbie pinks, emerald greens and Cabernet reds shout for attention. It should make your head hurt, but the terracotta tile roofs bring unity while the gray stone and red brick of the pavements and the blue/green of the canals offer a soothing backdrop. The array is actually carefully planned by local government; any change of shade needs to be authorised. In this way, the densely packed area … less than a square mile … keeps its rainbow charm. 

Much like Venice but on a vastly smaller scale, a main canal winds through the island. It’s along this, plus one broad street leading to a piazza and the church, that the majority of the sightseeing is on offer. 

Before the Industrial Revolution allowed mass production, Burano was known for its lace. The women of the island made it while the men went fishing to feed the nearby city. There’s little modern demand, or willingness to pay for the vast amount of time needed, for hand-made lace. What’s left of the trade does allow some excellent shopping if you’re interested in sumptuous table linens, bridal veils or lace Christmas ornaments. There’s a museum of lace making on the main square, but the only place I actually saw anyone making anything was in the exceptionally upscale Martina Vidal, where a lady’s exceptionally deft fingers belied her obviously advanced age.

There’s also a generous spill-over in glass making from nearby Murano. Burano doesn’t have the big workshops producing large pieces like art glass or chandeliers, but there are more than a dozen shops with a workbench at the back where locals make beads, pendants and small figurines. Glass reproductions of fruit and wrapped candies are abundant. One shop stands out: Andrea Senigaglia. He fuses gold leaf onto the surface of glass, then etches designs into the metallic surface … from simple letters to a virtuoso copy of Caravaggio’s Bacchus etched into a golden bottle. 

You’ll also find a sprinkling of Venetian mask shops and, in a fusion of two islands, lace versions of the classic carnival wear. I saw enough similarity between the examples in different shops to question whether these were hand made or important from some cheap factory to the east. Let the buyer beware. 

Window shopping is delightful, and there are abundant local restaurants to fuel your efforts. The real joy of Burano, however, is stepping off main lanes and wandering around the purely residential bits. Some of the houses are new and eye-watering lay bright. Others have mellowed and are in a state of gentle repair. All are a photographer’s paradise and, unlike Venice, will reward the patient photographer with a people-free shot without too much waiting. 

The food here is also far better than the Venetian standard, which so often is average at best. I suspect the difference is that restaurants on Burano need locals to come back if they're to do anything more than a lunch trade, so they can't afford to fob anyone off with overpriced or average. So even the spots we stumbled into without any planning ... octopus salad and pesto trofie at Da Gigetto, just off the main square; cocktails at In Piazzetta on that square (and owned by an American who's gone local); or a beer and some cicchetti at Picnic, looking over the water to the skyline of Venice ... were tasty and good value. 

The best meal by far, however, was one we'd planned. Because despite being off the beaten track you're unlikely to get into Il Gatto Nero without a reservation. I learned about it because one of my favourite chefs, Angela Hartnett  ... English but of Italian descent ... says it's her favourite restaurant in the Venetian Lagoon. (You can read my review of her London flagship Murano here.) If Angela said that, and we were staying a short walk away, we had to go. She was, naturally, right.

Though there's a large dining room inside, on summer evenings all the service happens at tables along the canal outside, which is otherwise residential and silent after 6pm. We were the last table along the row, giving us nothing but twilight scenery in one direction and the occasional gliding of fishermen's boats coming home behind us. It was one of the most romantic settings for dining I can remember, and would have made for a memorable evening even if the food had been average. 

But it was well beyond that!

We were lucky enough to strike up a conversation with owner/manager Massimiliano Bovo on arrival (we didn't know who he was at the time), and the combination of our mentioning Angela and our obvious enthusiasm for food and wine meant he took a special interest in us all night. Prompted by his delightful banter ... in a broad Scots accent he'd picked up while living in the UK ... and the magic of the evening, we told him to choose for us and bring out whatever was best that day. After which followed the kind of meal that features in Italian fantasy ... combined with the kind of gluttony that land people in the third circle of Dante's hell.

There were little rounds of polenta topped with bits of seafood to pique our appetite. Hearing that my husband's tomato allergy kept him from having the crab dish at an earlier meal, Massimiliano made sure we had the best of the local crab to come out of the lagoon that day. Risotto came with a helpful conversation about the techniques that made theirs so good, and a packet of their favourite rice to take home. There was a plate of spaghetti with lobster, taken to another level by a crown of fresh courgette flowers. Admittedly it's not usual to have risotto and pasta at the same meal, but Massimiliano clearly recognised me as a woman who's partial to the magic of carbohydrates. Yes, of course we were full by this point, but out came a magnificent sea bass baked in salt with a few seasonal vegetable sides.

The tiramisu ... a dish I rarely order in restaurants because it's normally just wine soaked biscuits and whipped cream ... was the only one I've ever tasted that matches the labour-intensive but delicious, zabaglione-laced recipe I use at home. I admit it. Il Gatto Nero's was even better. All of this was washed down with an excellent local white wine. It was a profligate meal and I could hardly move by the end of it, between the distension of my stomach and the fact that the majority of my blood had clearly been rerouted to work on digestion. But, my god, it was good. Forget St. Mark's Square. The Doge's Palace can wait. Even the rainbow of Burano houses pales in comparison. If there's one "must do" in the Venetian Lagoon, I think it may be eating here.

I’m content to leave the big city of Venice and all those crazy crowds to my memories. Mazzorbo and Burano are a welcome reminder that there are plenty of joys still to be explored in the Venetian Lagoon. You just have to sail off the beaten track. And come hungry.