Montagnana has some of the best-preserved medieval walls in Italy — and outside of a few specialists, almost nobody knows they exist. The circuit runs nearly two kilometres, punctuated by 24 towers and pierced by four fortified gates, all built or expanded by the Scaligeri in the 14th century. Walk the full perimeter, climb one of the towers, and you begin to understand what a medieval town under siege actually meant. Inside the walls the town is small and quiet: a broad central square, a cathedral with a Veronese painting, and a handful of trattorias. On the first Sunday of September the square fills for the Palio of the 12 Paduan Communes, a horse race with medieval pageantry that has been run since 1259.
Outside the walls, the Villa Pisani is a fine 16th-century patrician villa with frescoed interiors, a reminder that the Venetian nobility found this plain worth farming well.