Parco Querini is Vicenza's main public garden, laid out in English landscape style in the early 19th century on the northern edge of the historic centre. It covers about 10 hectares with specimen trees, broad lawns, and a central pond that gives the park its most distinctive feature.
The park is genuinely pleasant and genuinely used — by families, by people eating lunch, by the pigeons and the turtles that regard the whole thing as their territory. A neoclassical exedra of statues anchors the eastern end. After a morning walking Palladio's marble streets, the informality of the park is welcome. The surrounding neighbourhood also holds some fine villas, and the walk back toward the centre takes you past the Teatro Olimpico.