Vicenza; Sunday, 15 March, 2026

The rain showers of the previous evening were nothing compared to the Thunderstorms and torrential downpours that woke me up a couple of times during the night, and were still raging as I sat eating another filling breakfast in the hotel. Thankfully the worst of the weather had passed through by 10:30, which was good as the hotel checkout time was 11am, and I hadn’t really wanted to trudge round the city dripping wet.

After checking out I took a circuitous route through the old town doing some more sightseeing before I reached the Palazzo Chiericati, the first of several Palazzo’s built by Palladio that I was going to visit today, this one having been converted into the Museo Civico and housing the city’s large fine art collection, which I spent quite a bit of time wandering around.

The Palazzo Chiericati isn’t a complete Palladio building as additional wings have been added on over the centuries, but my next stop was pure Andre at the Palazzo Thiene, which today is fully open to wander around taking in the different rooms, most of which house paintings, and even head up into the roof space to see the stonework of the top of the domed corner room.

Just around the corner from the Palazzo Thiene is the final of the Palladian Palazzo’s I was intending on visiting. This one, the Palazzo Barbaran da Porto is special as it has been converted into the Palladio Museum, which is dedicated to the life and works of the architect, including many intricate scale models of his buildings, including a model of the Palazzo Barbaran da Porto itself.

From the museum I wandered back into the central square and visited my favourite café for a repeat of yesterdays lunch, though with not many people around and angry looking skies I decided to eat inside the café, which turned out to be a good idea as a few minutes later another spectacular downpour lashed the city centre, only lasting a couple of minutes, but enough time to give everything a soaking.

From the café it was a short walk over to the Basilica Palladiana to visit the last museum of the day, the Museo del Gioiello or Museum of Jewellery – the city being quite famous for skill and output of it’s Jewellers, many of whom traditionally had shops in the ground floor of the Basilica Palladiana.

With the weather looking like it was still in a changeable mood I decided, whilst there were still specs of blue in the sky, it was probably wise to start making the long journey home so I popped back to my hotel, picked up my bag and headed to the station, arriving 20 minutes before my train and about 30 seconds ahead of the next shower.

It turned out it was lucky I was so early arriving at the station as my attempt to purchase a ticket from the self-service ticket machine was thwarted by its printer getting jammed, and of course the ticket office couldn’t simply just print off a new copy instead the ticket had to be cancelled, my card refunded and a new ticket issued and, of course, there was paperwork to accompany all that. In the end I made it up onto the platform just as the train was pulling in.

Thankfully the rest of the journey back to Venice Mestre and then through to the airport was smooth and uneventful, even if I was massively early, so I ended up spending quite a bit of time in the lounge before it was time to head down to the gate at catch the flight back to London.