Asolo is one of the most beautiful small towns in the Veneto, a walled hill town perched between cypresses and olive groves roughly halfway between Venice and Vicenza. The Italians call it "the city of a hundred horizons" for its views across the foothills to the Dolomites and the Venetian plain.
The town has attracted writers and artists for centuries. Queen Caterina Cornaro held court here after ceding Cyprus to Venice in 1489, and the verb asolare — to idle in pleasant company — supposedly derives from the town's name. Robert Browning spent his last productive years here. The great actress Eleonora Duse chose Asolo as her final home and is buried in the cemetery on the hill. The explorer Freya Stark lived here for decades, returning between her journeys through Arabia and Persia.
The best thing to do is simply wander. The old centre is small enough to walk in an hour, but you will want longer. Gothic arcades, frescoed facades, and balconies hung with geraniums line the narrow streets. The Rocca, a thousand-year-old fortress on the hilltop above, watches over everything. On a clear day the views from up there stretch all the way to Venice. Five kilometres away, Villa Barbaro at Maser — Palladio's finest work, painted throughout by Veronese — is worth a separate afternoon.