Villa Godi Malinverni

Villa Godi Malinverni at Lonedo, above Lugo di Vicenza, is the first villa Andrea Palladio built. He designed it around 1537, in his late twenties and not yet the architect the name now stands for, and it went up over the following five years for the brothers Girolamo, Pietro and Marcantonio Godi.

What makes it worth the drive is what it lacks. There is no temple front, no portico and no columns — the devices that define every Palladian villa that came after it, and that the world copied for four centuries. Instead there is a deep recessed loggia set between two blunt projecting wings, and a plain wall.

It is UNESCO-listed with the rest of his Veneto work, and it is the one building on that list where you can see what he was doing before he became Palladio.

The frescoes are sixteenth-century plaster in a house without museum-grade climate control. Follow the photography rules, do not touch the walls, and keep bags off the painted surfaces in the narrower rooms.

This is a privately owned and privately funded UNESCO building. Admission and the restaurant are what pay for the conservation, so buying the full ticket rather than only walking the grounds is the practical contribution.

The approach road through Lonedo is narrow and residential. Park where signed rather than on the verges, and keep the noise down — this is a village, not a visitor centre.

The villa is open to visitors on a seasonal calendar, typically the warmer half of the year and a limited number of days each week. Check the villa's own schedule before travelling rather than assuming — this is a privately run house, not a state museum with fixed hours.

Admission covers the frescoed rooms and the fossil museum. There is a restaurant on the site, which is unusual among the Palladian villas and makes this an easier half-day than most of them.

A car is effectively necessary. Lonedo is about 25 kilometres north of Vicenza, and public transport into the hills is sparse.

Allow an hour and a half for the interior, the museum and the garden. It combines naturally with Villa Piovene next door and with Marostica or Bassano del Grappa.