Castle, medieval village, Venetian baroque garden, wine tasting private tour 

Arquà Petrarca is a medieval village member of the association of small Italian towns of historical interest that aims to preserve and maintain villages with a rich cultural heritage. Arquà is located in a picturesque hilly context that the famous Italian poet Francesco Petrarca chose to spend the last four years of his life and where to be buried. Here you will have your lunch and some free time to stroll around its narrow streets.

During this day excursion, you will visit the castle of Monselice with a professional licensed local guide that you will meet when you will arrive on the spot. The castle is a complex of buildings that consist of four main parts. The most ancient one is composed of a late eleventh-century building, while the Little Castle (Castelletto) dates back to the twelfth century. During the thirteenth century the Castle was enlarged with a massive tower and the large rooms in the keep, characterized by “towered” fireplaces, were made in the fourteenth century. Each room was enriched with a precious collection of authentic furniture, paintings, carpets, tapestries, ceramics, instruments, and fabrics in the Gothic and Renaissance style.

After the guided visit, you will have a free walking tour along the path that follows the slope of the hill. On the left, you find a staircase and some grotesque statues part of Villa Mocenigo that dates back to the renaissance. Further up the old Cathedral of St Justine built in Romanesque style in 1256 and restored in 1935. Continuing, you will pass through two columns surmounted by two lions and a gate.

From here you will walk through a series of six chapels that accompany the ascent to the area of Villa Duodo. In the church next to the villa there are the relics of 25 Christians protomartyrs justifying the granting of indulgence by Pope Paul V.

This journey includes also the visit to Villa Barbarigo-Pizzoni Ardemani garden. Known by its place-name Valsanzibio, it is one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the most intricate and unspoiled, among Venetian baroque gardens. Its design is deceptively simple, arranged around the principal defining axis that was a feature of Italian Baroque garden design. The long axis continues up a cypress avenue, climbing the hill behind the villa. In front, it takes the form of lengthy tapis vert, punctuated by fountains, and enclosed by high beech hedges. A cross axis, running east to west, takes water as its inspiration. A series of pools, fountains, and cascades, unique in the Veneto, carry the eye in a prospettiva d'acqua, which rises up gently towards the wooded, green Euganean Hills. This hilly landscape is not terraced, as in Tuscany or Rome, but has been left to become a natural element in the composition. Besides the two main axes, the garden was divided up into compartmentalized squares or rectangles, each with its own character or theme.

And as the last experience, you will rest in a vineyard with local wines tasting enjoying the landscape.