These hills of volcanic origin, south of Padua, form a natural oasis which emerges from the flat landscape of the Po Valley concealing ancient villages and artistic and historic monuments among its dense forests and breathtaking scenery. Abano and Montegrotto lie at the foot of the hills a short distance apart. These towns, renowned for the extraordinary healing properties of their mud and water since Roman times, together form one of the most famous spa resorts in the world.

In Montegrotto, among other things, a visit to the main archaeological area of the Hills, with baths and channels dating back to the Roman Republican and Augustan times, is highly-recommended. From here, proceed along the slopes of the hills towards Torreglia and after Galzignano you will find the village of Valsanzibio, with its imposing villa Barbarigo, whose seventeenth-century Italian gardens are unique in their kind in Veneto.

Battaglia, once an important river port (located on the channel of the same name), now home to the Museum of Navigation that collects evidence of activities related to goods transportation from the Hills to the laguna, comes after the green hills. Back in amongst the hills once more you will find the medieval town of Arquà Petrarca and the house in which poet Francesco Petrarch spent his last years. Your next stop will be Monselice, a walled city dominated by an isolated hill with a medieval fortress full of ancient furniture, weapons and artwork.

Then you will arrive in Este, an ancient city which was inhabited as early as the ninth century BC. This town's castle is surrounded by Carrara marble walls a kilometer long, dotted with towers and crowned with battlements. The route continues through Cinto Euganeo and Teolo. After these two towns and you will take the road to the left, marked by age-old trees, and reach the abbey of Praglia, founded in the eleventh century, with its fifteenth-century church of the "Assunta", Italian for Our Lady of the Assumption, monastery, cloisters and monumental refectory. The abbey boasts a rich library of over 50,000 volumes. Here the monks dedicate themselves to the restoration of paper and books and herbalism.