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Italy’s Rugby City
Treviso is not simply a base for visiting Venice. For rugby people, it is a destination in its own right.
The city sits at the heart of one of Italy’s great rugby regions, with Benetton Rugby providing the professional focal point and an extraordinary network of clubs surrounding it. Mogliano, Villorba, Paese, Casale, Tarvisium and many more give touring teams genuine depth when it comes to fixtures, coaching and cultural exchange.
Sky High Sports has worked in Treviso for years, and the strength of the destination comes from the relationships we have developed across the region. Former Benetton players, current coaches, club volunteers and people who have become friends allow us to build tours from the inside, matching teams properly and opening doors that go well beyond simply arranging a game.
The professional experience is exceptional. Groups can train at La Ghirada, the home of Benetton Rugby, watch United Rugby Championship action at Stadio Monigo and, depending on the programme, work with coaches and former professional players who understand both Italian rugby and the needs of touring teams.
Yet some of the best moments happen away from the professional game. A fixture at Rugby Villorba followed by a proper Italian Terzo Tempo, cicchetti in the old streets of Treviso, an afternoon playing padel or a visit to a local Prosecco producer can tell you just as much about the Veneto as a stadium tour ever could.
Treviso gives us the balance we look for in a rugby destination: excellent opposition, professional access, a beautiful and manageable city, outstanding food and enough variety to build completely different tours for schools, clubs, universities, academies and senior teams.
Arrive into Northern Italy and transfer to Treviso before settling into the hotel. Depending on arrival times, head to La Ghirada for a training session or coaching experience, followed by a relaxed team dinner in the city.
After breakfast, spend the morning exploring Treviso or compete in a team padel tournament before transferring to your host rugby club. Play Tour Match One and experience a traditional Italian Terzo Tempo with your hosts before returning to Treviso for the evening.
Use the morning for sightseeing, recovery or a professional rugby experience before Tour Match Two against another Veneto club. Later, head to Stadio Monigo to watch Benetton Rugby compete in the United Rugby Championship before celebrating the tour with dinner in Treviso.
Enjoy a final morning in Treviso, or continue to Venice for sightseeing before transferring to the airport. For longer Italian tours, Treviso connects naturally with Verona, Lake Garda, Parma and the wider north of the country.
1. Train and experience professional rugby at La Ghirada, the home of Benetton Rugby.
2. Play a properly matched tour fixture against one of the Veneto’s outstanding community clubs and enjoy a traditional Terzo Tempo afterwards.
3. Watch Benetton Rugby at Stadio Monigo in the United Rugby Championship.
4. Explore Treviso through its cicchetti bars, piazzas and canals, with a day in Venice easily added.
5. Add something different with padel, Prosecco tasting or a parent and supporter programme through the wider Veneto.
Rugby Runs Through the Veneto
Treviso has earned its reputation as one of the heartlands of Italian rugby.
Benetton Rugby sit at the top of the pyramid, but the real strength of the region is the depth beneath them. Clubs such as Mogliano, Rugby Villorba, Paese, Casale and Tarvisium have developed generations of players and provide excellent opposition across youth, senior, women’s and girls’ rugby.
That depth allows us to match fixtures properly. A touring side should not simply play whoever happens to be available. Age, level, ambition and the personality of the group all matter, and our local network allows us to find the right fit.
Our professional connections add another layer. Former Benetton player Marco Lazzarone helps us create experiences around La Ghirada and Stadio Monigo, while Sam Hidalgo Clyne, now Sporting Director at Rugby Mogliano, gives ambitious groups access to a coach who has played at the highest levels of the game.
For performance focused groups, Treviso can become a genuine rugby camp. For a grassroots club, it can simply mean a fantastic fixture, brilliant hospitality and a night exchanging shirts and stories with a host club.
Both are equally valid rugby tours.
La Ghirada & Benetton Rugby
Train Where the Professionals Train
La Ghirada is the training home of Benetton Rugby and one of the great rugby environments in Italy.
With five pitches, including an artificial surface, extensive gym facilities and the professional game operating around you, it provides an outstanding setting for touring teams looking to add a high performance element to their programme.
Depending on availability, Sky High Sports groups can access coaching, training facilities and experiences around Benetton Rugby before heading to Stadio Monigo to watch the team compete in the United Rugby Championship.
For players, particularly those on school, academy and university programmes, seeing how a professional environment operates can be as valuable as anything that happens during a tour match.
Rugby Villorba
Grassroots Rugby, Done Properly
Some of our longest standing Treviso relationships sit away from the professional game.
Rugby Villorba has welcomed Sky High Sports teams for many years and remains one of our favourite hosts in the region. The club has an outstanding community programme, multiple pitches and a thriving girls and women’s section alongside its boys and men’s teams.
The welcome matters just as much as the rugby.
Club stalwart Giuseppe “Beppi” Zanatta once explained to us that touring teams bring far more than a fixture or a busy clubhouse. They show his young players that rugby extends far beyond their own town and opens up a wider world of people, cultures and opportunities.
That is touring rugby at its best.
Excellent motorway links make Treviso an easy stop on wider Northern Italy rugby tours.
Direct rail connections from Venice, Padua, Verona and wider Northern Italy.
Nearest Airport: Venice Marco Polo Airport (30 minutes by coach)
Alternative Airports: Treviso Airport (10 minutes) and Verona Airport (1 hour 20 minutes
From Milan: Around 2 hours 30 minutes by high-speed train via Verona, or approximately 3 hours by coach.
Hotel Maggior Consiglio remains one of our preferred bases in Treviso.
The four star hotel sits close to La Ghirada while still providing easy access into the city, which makes it particularly useful for rugby groups. Spacious communal areas, a good gym, swimming pool and substantial meeting facilities mean it can work just as well for a performance programme as it does for a traditional club tour.
Its larger meeting rooms also give us options for team meetings, presentations, private dining and events, while the proximity to Benetton’s training base keeps unnecessary coach travel to a minimum.
For groups where rugby is a major focus of the itinerary, the combination of Maggior Consiglio and La Ghirada is difficult to beat.
Treviso works because the experience does not stop when training finishes.
The city is compact, walkable and full of bars, cafés and restaurants, while cicchetti, the small dishes synonymous with the Veneto, make exploring the city particularly easy for groups. We do not need to organise every minute. Sometimes giving a touring team the right starting point and a few trusted recommendations is enough.
For something more structured, Padel Circus offers a brilliant team activity. Run by former Italy international Matteo Minozzi, the venue combines four padel courts with a rugby specific gym, bar and space for a BBQ lunch. As padel continues to boom in the UK, it has become an increasingly popular addition to our programmes and offers plenty of competition without the expense of activities such as karting or paintball.
Treviso also sits in Prosecco country. La Cantina Pizzolato, close to Rugby Villorba, produces organic wines and sponsors both Villorba and Benetton Rugby. It is exactly the type of relationship we like to develop: a first class local experience with a business that also puts something back into the rugby community.
For travelling parents and supporters, winery visits, relaxed lunches and time exploring Treviso can sit alongside the players’ rugby programme rather than everyone having to follow exactly the same itinerary.
And of course, Venice remains close enough for one of the great sightseeing days in European touring.
Treviso is not somewhere we send rugby teams because it is close to Venice. We send them because few places in Europe offer a better combination of professional rugby, grassroots culture and authentic Italian life.
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