I love love love love love an ideal city so—duh!—I went to Palmanovo while I was in northeast Italy.

The best way to understand the layout of Palmanova would be from above. Here’s the next best way: a map.

Why this shape? Apparently, back in 1593, folks in this area were pretty concerned about invasion by Habsburgs and Turks so they designed this city as a fortress with three layers of defense.

The nine-sided defensive walls are still intact (my bus drove through one one of them). At the center of the fortress, streets radiate out from a piazza.

I stood in the center of the piazza and spun to make this video. Even on a summer day on a weekend afternoon, there wasn’t much going on in the town.

The church has a stubby tower (so it couldn’t be shot down from outside the walls). Normally, the piazza in an ideal city is all about centering civic life, so you wouldn’t necessarily have a church, though—when seen in the context of the the huge scale of the piazza—it isn’t given a lot of emphasis.

Palmanova is a UNESCO site and it has a tourist information office…but other than that, the town itself is the attraction and there’s not really anything to do, outside of watching a tired video next door to the TI. I asked at the tourist office where I could find a public bathroom, which I hoped to visit before getting back on the bus and they me they told me there isn’t one. So I bought a hazelnut gelato from a cranky lady at nearby shop to get access to the toilet there.

Sorry, Palmanova, you can’t call yourself ideal if you make it hard for me to pee.

How I got to Palmanova: day trip from Udine by bus.

Where I slept: Mercatovecchio.  Price: €170 for a room with a kitchenette.  Recommended: yes