Discover Veneto

Veneto's geography runs from the Venetian Lagoon and the flat Po Valley farmland to the jagged Dolomite peaks around Cortina d'Ampezzo, with the UNESCO-listed Prosecco hills of Valdobbiadene and Conegliano sitting between the two extremes.

Venice began as a refuge for mainlanders fleeing invasion, growing into an independent maritime republic that controlled Mediterranean trade routes for a thousand years before Napoleon ended its independence in 1797. Veneto itself traces further back to the ancient Veneti and Roman Verona, joining the unified Kingdom of Italy only in 1866.

Veneto splits its cultural identity between Venice and the mainland cities, with Venetian dialect, cicchetti bar culture, and the Biennale defining the lagoon city, and civic pride in Roman and Palladian heritage defining Verona, Padua, and Vicenza. The spritz, now a worldwide drink, actually originated here as a genuinely local ritual.

Veneto's climate splits between the humid subtropical lagoon and Po Valley, prone to winter fog and Venice's acqua alta high tides, and the genuine alpine winters of the Dolomites around Cortina d'Ampezzo.

Veneto cooks with rice and polenta more than pasta, and leans sweet-sour and salt-cured rather than tomato-bright. A region running from a saltwater lagoon up to the Dolomites never developed a single cuisine — and it bottles more DOC wine than anywhere else in Italy.