Staying at the Villa Saraceno

Sometimes writing about things for these posts makes me see them in a new light. Moving from recent Fair Isle posts to plan this one made me realise what a complete contrast there was between my accommodation on these two successive holidays: from a lighthouse on the windy tip of a remote island to a Palladian villa in the flatlands of the Veneto. When D. first outlined his plans for his birthday celebrations, he told us "You won't find much of interest in the area, it's just agricultural land in the plains, nothing to see, but the villa will be a pleasant place to be and socialise or read..." He was wrong about the first half of that, but right about the second.

I'd met the expression 'Palladian' and had a vague idea of the sort of neoclassical architecture it described; a week at the Villa Saraceno was a crash course in what those words mean (it also gave me the same sensation of being out of my depth that you get when you've rather liked a book or a piece of music, and find yourself among true fans of its creator). Saraceno isn't large, as Palladian villas go, and only the central block was completed within Palladio's lifetime (the colonnaded barchessa to the right is nineteenth century, and in the original plan was mirrored by another to the left of the central block); the medieval farmhouse which it was to replace survives, fading into the darkness in the photo. But it's in the guidebooks, and collectors of Palladian vllas come and gaze through the gates (and visit on Wednesday afternoons, when parts of it are open to the public); it is a World Heritage site (or part of one). And we got to stay there - and to switch on the floodlighting, if we felt like it.

( More of this - with pictures )