This Italian City Is an Affordable Alternative to Venice—and It Has Gorgeous Canals, Charming Markets, and Few Crowds
Falling in love with Treviso, Italy is pretty easy. Radicchio, tiramisu, prosecco, and architecture that deliberately calls to mind Venice and it’s just a 30-minute train ride from there. Last year I visited my friend Gaia Passi de Preposulo, who grew up here and whose family has called this corner of the Veneto home for centuries. She took me through the canals, the markets and the osterie, and gave me a deep dive in tiramisu. I was completely sold. When Travel + Leisure asked me to write about Treviso, I didn’t hesitate for a second.
Before you read on, three Ciao Bella podcast episodes worth listening to first:
🎙 Tiramisu with Gaia Passi de Preposulo — the dessert, the city, the family
🎙 Philippe Starck at H-Farm — design, innovation, and the Treviso countryside
🎙 Italy’s Silicon Valley — why this quiet corner of the Veneto is one of Italy’s most forward-thinking places
Venice’s Garden City
Roughly 30 to 40 minutes from Venice, Treviso sits firmly in insiders-only territory: it has the same canals, same soft light, and same DNA as the nearby city — minus the crowds.
The Veneti call it Città d’Acqua, the city of water, and sometimes la piccola Venezia della terraferma, the little Venice of the mainland. Walk its streets, and you’ll understand why. The rivers Sile and Botteniga thread through the city, splitting into narrow canals called cagnani that wind past waterwheels, frescoed facades, and medieval palazzi with crenellated parapets. Every corner earns its postcard and Instagram post. Even Dante noticed, name-dropping Treviso in The Divine Comedy as the place “where the Sile and the Cagnan go hand in hand”, a small literary shoutout the city celebrates to this day.
The resemblance to Venice isn’t coincidental and it isn’t accidental. “In ancient times, the people of the Marca Trevigiana were known as the Gentle People,” says the Conte Passi de Preposulo of Villa Tiepolo Passi, whose family has been rooted in this land for over two centuries. “It was the barbarian invasions that drove the mainland population into the lagoons, and that is how Venice was born.
In the 14th century, at the height of its commercial power, Venice turned its attention back to the mainland and Treviso was the first great city to become a Venetian protectorate, in 1339, because it was easily reachable from the lagoon via the Sile.” For centuries, Treviso was Venice’s garden, thousands of hectares of lush farmland that fed La Serenissima’s appetite for both good food and culture. Boats arrived here every day from Venice and left loaded with produce, grains, wine, and more. Treviso wasn’t just a neighbor: it was essential to Venice’s way of life.
“With the construction of more than a thousand Venetian villas,” the Conte continues, “the Treviso area became the Republic’s granary and garden , a place where the useful and the beautiful were inseparable. That harmony between progress and landscape, between civilization and nature, is still visible today.”
21st Century Treviso
Today’s Treviso is still a lush city, and in 2025, it became the first Italian city to win the European Green Leaf Award, given to small cities that show a commitment to sustainability. It is also, quietly, a fashion and culture capital: it’s the hometown of United Colors of Benetton, which has kept its headquarters just outside the city. Renowned photographer Oliviero Toscani, whose images created some of the most provocative advertising campaigns of the 20th century, spent a significant amount of time in the city.
Food historians will wax poetic about radicchio rosso, the area’s famous red-leafed chicory, and rolling hills of Prosecco vineyards, but Italians will tell you that Treviso is most famous for its tiramisu. The world’s most ubiquitous Italian dessert was born in the Veneto region, but there are a few claims about the exact birthplace.
The Accademia del Tiramisu traces the dessert’s history to an 1800s brothel, where legend has it a resourceful madame mixed up an aphrodisiac confection for her clients. Another account is that, in the mid-1960s, a restaurant owner and chef at Le Beccherie paired up to create Tiramesù (which means “pick me up” in the local dialect) debuting at the restaurant in 1972. In 2019, Le Beccherie was deemed a “Historical Establishment” by the Tiramisu Academy for its original Treviso Tiramisu recipe.
Best Things to Do
Treviso is a gorgeous walking city and a serious biking town. Start at Piazza dei Signori, where the medieval Palazzo dei Trecento has anchored daily life for centuries. Walk to the Duomo di San Pietro Apostolo to see Titian’s Annunciation, then meander the porticoes along Via Calmaggiore.
Water is central to Treviso’s identity, not only because of the canals, but also the fountains. The Fontana dei Tre Visi, a tri-faced fountain just off Via del Municipio, gives Treviso its name. Then there’s the Fontana delle Tette: a 16th-century marble torso built in 1559 that once dispensed red wine from one breast and white from the other, and later was used by Napoleon’s soldiers for target practice. You can find the original behind protective glass by the loggia of the Palazzo dei Trecento and a late 1980s replica in the courtyard of Palazzo Zignoli.
Follow the Canale dei Buranelli and stop at the Isola della Pescheria, a small island market that’s been in use for centuries. On Tuesday and Saturday mornings, the strip between Piazzale Burchiellati and Borgo Mazzini becomes a local market.
Beyond the city’s medieval walls, the surrounding territory rewards the curious. “Treviso offers an extraordinary variety of landscapes,” says the Conte: more than 800 Venetian villas, UNESCO-listed hills, medieval walled towns, and the foothills of the Dolomites — all within a relatively small area. With more time, walk the medieval walls through Porta San Tomaso, or lose an afternoon at the Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce. “This is where you’ll find one of Italy’s great collections of vintage advertising posters,” says Treviso native and journalist Gaia Passi de Preposulo.
Up for a ride? Rent a bike and follow the Sile Greenway, Europe’s longest resurgence river across about 4,800 acres of parkland. The ride is approximately 35 miles and leads to Jesolo and the Venetian Lagoon. We did this one clear day and were able to make out the bell towers of Venice.
Every March 21 is Tiramisù Day, and every October, the city hosts the Tiramisù World Cup to see who has the best recipe. In 2026, Treviso goes one step further with the Tiramisù Run, a 10.1-kilometer race to work off the mascarpone.
Where to Eat and Drink
“Treviso is a city of art with excellent museums, theater, and music,” says the Conte, “but also the city of Prosecco, of Treviso’s famous red radicchio, and of tiramisu. And proverbial for its hospitality – its osterie, restaurants, and local bars.”
You may have heard of cicchetti, Venice’s iconic bite-sized appetizers, best enjoyed with an ombra, a small glass of wine. In Treviso, they’re called spuncioti, and the best place to have them is Osteria Muscoli at the Pescheria. “You sit right on the canal, looking at the fish market. It’s one of those places you don’t rush,” says Gaia Passi de Preposulo. Al Botegon (nearby at Porta San Tomaso) has a similar setup.
For a proper sit-down, L’Incontro is the place — an iconic fine-dining time capsule since the late 1970s. Order the risotto Carnaroli cacio e pepe with red prawn carpaccio, or the vitello tonnato with grilled asparagus and fried capers. Trattoria Toni del Spin is part restaurant, part enoteca focusing on Trevisano traditions like bigoli in salsa, baccalà alla vicentina, and seppie in umido with polenta. For Sunday brunch, Burici, with its exposed walls, greenhouse, garden, and ingredient-focused international menu, is the draw. If you’re on the move, Albertini Gastronomia is the move for fried seafood takeout.
Credited with being tiramisu’s birthplace, Le Beccherie is a classic choice for a taste of the esteemed dessert. For a heightened experience, Treviso Tiramisu at Palazzo Barberia is not only five floors of bakery and restaurant, but also hosts lessons in how to make the hometown treat.
Where to Stay
In the heart of Treviso, Palazzina300 puts you steps from Piazza dei Signori in a 14th-century palazzo comprising 10 boutique rooms with contemporary decor that doesn’t try too hard. For more atmosphere, Locanda Ponte Dante leans into its history — medieval frescoes, original fireplaces, Renaissance architectural bones. Its five rooms are comfortably styled modern, and the ground-floor osteria is rustic and rooted in Trevisan culinary tradition.
For the full 360-degree Trevisan experience, a 10-minute drive outside the city walls is the majestic Villa Tiepolo Passi. The 17th-century baroque villa has been in the Passi de Preposulo family for over two centuries, and the family still lives on site. “To own a villa like this today is a moral and cultural commitment,” says the Conte. “We are custodians of a piece of history. To preserve it requires building a real business around it — cultural tourism, events, hospitality, guided visits, agricultural activity. The villa becomes, again, a center of economy: not only for its own maintenance, but for everything it generates in the surrounding territory — identity, history, tradition, culture, landscape, craft.”
Stay in the villa itself or in the foresteria, the estate’s historic staff quarters-turned-guest-lodging. The Conte will find you regardless — whether in the gardens, the chapel, along the river, or by the water mill — ready to tell you exactly how this land fed Venice, sheltered its people, and outlasted its republic.
