Corso Andrea Palladio

Corso Andrea Palladio runs the length of Vicenza's historic centre, from Piazza Castello at one end to Piazza Matteotti and the Teatro Olimpico at the other. It is lined with the palaces Palladio and his followers built for the city's landowning families, which makes a fifteen-minute walk down it the most efficient architecture lesson in the Veneto.

The Corso is a functioning high street, and the shops along it -- particularly the goldsmiths -- are the reason it has not become a museum piece. Buying here supports a craft economy that has run continuously since the middle ages.

It is pedestrianised, and residents rely on that; the delivery windows early in the morning are when the street belongs to work rather than to walking.

Free, open and pedestrianised for most of its length. It begins a five-minute walk from Vicenza railway station via Piazza Castello, and walking it end to end takes about fifteen minutes without stopping -- or an afternoon with.

Most of the palaces are private and cannot be entered; the facades are the attraction. The civic Card Musei covers the buildings on and near the Corso that can be visited.