Mantua and Sabbioneta

Mantua sits on a peninsula almost surrounded by three artificial lakes, and under the Gonzaga it became one of the great courts of the Renaissance. The Ducal Palace holds Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi, a room painted in the 1470s in which the ceiling opens into an illusionistic oculus with figures leaning over the rim. Outside the centre, Giulio Romano's Palazzo Te contains the Room of the Giants, frescoed floor to ceiling with the fall of the Titans in a way designed to make the architecture appear to collapse around the visitor. Sabbioneta, half an hour away, is an entire ideal city built from nothing in the sixteenth century.

What you actually see

• The Camera degli Sposi - Mantegna's illusionistic ceiling and court portraits.
• The Room of the Giants - Giulio Romano's collapsing architecture at Palazzo Te.
• The three lakes - surrounding the city on all but one side.
• Sabbioneta - a complete ideal city of the 1550s, half an hour away.

When to go

April to June and September to October. The Camera degli Sposi admits small numbers on timed slots, so book ahead. Mist rising off the lakes in autumn is the city at its best. Mosquitoes from the lakes are a real nuisance in summer.

Honest expectations

The Camera degli Sposi has a strict time limit inside, often around five minutes, and must be booked; visitors regularly arrive without a slot. Mosquitoes off the lakes in summer are genuinely bad. Sabbioneta needs a car and its buildings open on a limited guided schedule.

Nearby

Verona is 40 minutes north; Parma is an hour west.