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00 Feltre
Stemma di Feltre

Veneto · Belluno

Feltre

A Renaissance city in the Belluno Prealps, rebuilt after 1510 as the vertical village it remains.

Best time
Apr–Oct
By car
1 h 21 min from Trento
By train
Station in the comune
Population
20,369

Known for

  • RENAISSANCE CITY

    Sacked in 1510 during the War of the League of Cambrai and rebuilt over sixty years in coherent sixteenth-century style.

  • PALIO DI FELTRE

    First weekend of August, with five rioni in Renaissance costume, archery and a horse race around Piazza Maggiore.

  • DOLOMITI BELLUNESI

    National park covering 32,000 hectares of the Vette Feltrine and Monti del Sole, headquartered in the city.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Oct

  • J8°
  • F11°
  • M12°
  • A15°
  • M19°
  • J24°
  • J27°
  • A27°
  • S22°
  • O18°
  • N13°
  • D8°
  • Best
  • Hot or crowded
  • Quiet
  • Mostly closed

Daytime averages, 2020–2024. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com.

The festa: Vittore e Corona, 14 May

Why come

Feltre sits on a hill above the Stizzon, near its confluence with the Piave, seventy kilometers north of Padova. Roman Feltria was a municipium on the Via Claudia Augusta. The defining episode in the city's appearance came in 1510, during the War of the League of Cambrai, when troops under Maximilian I of Habsburg sacked the town after the Venetian defeat at Agnadello, burning most of it.

The city rebuilt over the next sixty years, and that reconstruction shapes how its parts relate to each other still. The upper city, the citadel built around the main square, holds the seat of civic government, the medieval keep with its views to the peaks and forests north of the city, and the church of San Rocco. Below it, the long arcaded street through the lower city carries the same sixteenth-century idiom down the hill, so the whole centro storico reads as one build rather than a patchwork of eras. What Feltre offers, in the end, is a rare case where destruction produced coherence: a single burning followed by a single, unhurried rebuilding, and the town has looked essentially like itself ever since.

The Sunday letter

Feltre is on our list. Its letter is still to come.

We are writing about all 1,000 of these towns, one at a time, in a free letter every Sunday: the photo, the food, the festa. That is our mission. Sign up and you will be there when Feltre comes up. By Peter & Sophia, from Pietrasanta.

Read on

Feltre in our articles

How to get there

From Venice (TSF), about 1h 15m by car.

Verona (VRN) is about 2h 21m away.

By car from the centre of Trento 1h 21m or Padua 1h 37m.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Venice or Verona?

Coming by train into Trento? Feltre is about 1h 20m away by road.

Every town within reach of Venice airport.

Feltre, photo 1
Feltre, photo 2

What to see

  • Piazza Maggiore

    Main square of the upper city, at the highest point of the centro storico, surrounded by Renaissance palaces and the citadel walls.

  • Palazzo della Ragione

    Sixteenth-century town hall on the square with a loggia traditionally attributed to Andrea Palladio.

  • Castello di Alboino

    Medieval keep above the centro storico, named for the Lombard king Alboin, with views across the Piave valley to the peaks north of the city.

  • Pinacoteca di Palazzo Villabruna

    Civic gallery with works by Morto da Feltre, Cima da Conegliano, Gentile Bellini and Pietro Marescalchi.

  • Via Mezzaterra

    Arcaded street through the lower city, the spine of the sixteenth-century Renaissance reconstruction after the 1510 sack.

  • Parco Nazionale Dolomiti Bellunesi

    National park headquartered in Feltre, covering 32,000 hectares of the Vette Feltrine and Monti del Sole north of the city.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Feltre fits in a slow Italy circuit.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

Plan your trip

We recommend

Where to eat

Not our picks, but places the guides put their name to: a Michelin star, a Gambero Rosso fork, a Slow Food snail, a Michelin Key for the hotels. Worth a table, a counter, or a night when you pass through.

  • AuroraRistorante

    Aurora has a spot in the Michelin Guide to its name.

  • Enoteca ContemporaneaWine Bar

    Enoteca Contemporanea carries one Gambero Rosso bottle.

Living here

  • Population 20,369
  • A local hubi
  • Pharmacy in town
  • High school within a 30-minute drive
  • Train station in the comune
  • Nearest airport Venice, 1 h 15 min drive
  • Regional capital Venezia, 1 h 34 min drive

Common questions

What is Feltre known for?
Feltre is a Renaissance city at 325 meters in the Belluno Prealps, rebuilt after 1510 as the vertical village it remains.
Where is Feltre?
Feltre is a comune in the province of Belluno, in Veneto.
What is the nearest airport to Feltre?
Venice (TSF), about 1h 15m by car.
Can you get to Feltre without a car?
Yes. There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive by train.
How long is the drive from Trento to Feltre?
About 1h 21m by car.
When is the best time to visit Feltre?
Best in Apr–Oct. July is the warmest month, averaging 27 degrees, and May the wettest, with about 23 rain days.
Is there a sagra or a festival in Feltre?
The town keeps its patron saint's day: Vittore e Corona, 14 May.
Which other towns are like Feltre?
Orvieto, Sondrio and Ivrea.
How many people live in Feltre?
20,369 at the 2023 count.
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

The numbers

  • Elevation: 325 m
  • Population: 20,369
  • Surface area: 99.79 km²

These figures were compiled from public directories: ISTAT, OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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