Italy's smaller, smarter alternative to Venice |
As Venice struggles with crowds and pollution, nearby Treviso is quietly proving that sustainability and good taste can go hand in hand.
The air is thick with salt and butter as a bowl of tagliatelle tangled with melted anchovies and shaved cod's roe arrives at my table beside the canal. The sharp pop of a cork breaks the hum of restaurant chatter and waitress pours a glass of local white wine. Lunch has arrived.
"This is the king of butters," I'm told by my waitress, who says the Alpine butter – Primiero Botìro – coating my pasta is a regional speciality. Made in mountain dairies during July and September from raw milk, she says, "it tastes best now".
It's September and I'm in Treviso, one of northern Italy's most quietly delicious destinations and a place many travellers only pass through, landing here on low-cost carriers and then heading straight to nearby Venice. However, Treviso is worth a stop: a historic walled city laced with canals, where tiramisù first appeared on menus and radicchio and prosecco shape everyday life.
Most recently, it's a destination turning heads by becoming the first Italian city to win the European Green Leaf Award, an EU initiative that recognises the environmental efforts of smaller towns and cities (20,000-100,000 residents).
With a population of nearly 94,000, Treviso impressed judges by transforming an abandoned landfill into a solar park, overhauling its canal system to improve water quality and launching biodiversity projects to clean its air. The green drive is also expanding beyond the city, into the Unesco-listed Prosecco Hills, where wine producers are adopting sustainable practices to combat climate change.
Treviso's efforts offer an interesting counterpoint to Venice, just 30 minutes away, which continues to buckle under overtourism, lagoon pollution and infrastructure strains. The ancient city's long-heralded day-tripper fee raised millions in revenue but has failed to significantly curb tourists, which still average around 13,000 per day in 2025, compared with 16,676 in 2024.
"We are very proud of our city," says Alessandro Manera, Treviso's deputy mayor. "It was something of a challenge to show that an Italian city could win this award. The target of the award isn't to [be] the most lovely, green city in Europe. It's about showing who is improving."
Since launching its sustainable mission seven years ago, Treviso has built kilometres of new bike lanes to reduce car usage, implemented school programmes on recycling and planted 6,000 additional trees. Trees, says Manera, play a major role in improving air quality in the municipality, which is located within the Po Valley – a........