The local tourist board are pitching it a bit high when they suggest that the waterways of TREVISO may remind you of Venice, but the old centre of this brisk provincial capital is certainly more alluring than you might imagine from a quick glance on your way to or from the airport. Treviso was an important town long before its assimilation by Venice in 1389, and plenty of evidence of its early status survives in the form of Gothic churches, public buildings and, most dramatically of all, the paintings of Tomaso da Modena (1325-79), the major artist in north Italy in the years immediately after Giotto's death. The general townscape within Treviso's sixteenth-century walls is often appealing too - long porticoes and frescoed house facades give many of the streets an appearance quite distinct from those of other towns in the region.