22nd June 2000 Bessano and Asolo
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2000
1
57
81
Trip End
Aug 09, 2000
Bessano del Grappa,
Italy
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Even leaving Barbarano at 7.30 am wasn't good enough to get us close to Bassano del Grappa at a reasonable hour. I amazed Cheryl by getting a break in the oncoming traffic as we approached the La Rotonda. I dived across to the wrong side of the road and parked in a bay, from where I could photograph. We had been trying all week to find the time. Better still, I pulled back to the right side of the road easily, and rejoined the peak hour traffic. We took ages to negotiate the peak hour traffic into and through Vincenza, and then the signposting was so confusing on the other side, we ended up taking the scenic route (yeh right!). Villages every 4 km, and heavy industry on either side of narrow country roads, scattered among vinyards and other fields. We stopped to photograph the castle and walls above Marostica. These are realy unusual in that the castle is perched on the top of a mountain, and the walls run down either side, with nothing but trees and bush enclosed between them, until the bottom, where the town runs around the base of the mountain.
On entering Bassano del Grappa from the west rather than the south, and with no map of the town, we were lucky. We literally drove straight up to the Palladio bridge, and found a parking spot in a side street beside the river. A little unerving parkng close to what appeared to be an extreme right wing skinheads hangout. Almost like a squat with grafiti on all walls and doors etc. We walked down onto the gravel bed of the river. As I am repeating over and over in this journal, by June/July, the rivers have contracted into their narrower bed, and the sides are often just gravel and rock beds. In the case of the Brenta River, it is still reasonably wide at probably 40 metres or so, and three metres deep, but the western bank has large stretches of gravel beds. The usual ducks and geese with their chicks, and pigeons having a bath. We went down to film and photograph the Ponte degli Alpini. This fantastic timber bridge was designed by Palladio in 1569. It was deliberately designed to be built of timber, to have the flexibility to withstand the flood waters in spring. Nevertheless, it was destroyed once, and rebuilt to the same design. There are four pylons in the river to support it. Also of timber, they have footings designed like the bow of a boat to cut the water and force it to flow around the pylons. The bridge itself has wonderful marble and stone paving, and is roofed with terracotta tiles. It realy is the most impressive of all the famous bridges of Italy.
We walked across the bridge, spending some time admiring the views north and south along the river. The banks are lined with willows and wonderful medieval/renaisance buildings. We spent some time walking up through the town to the piazza. We had decided that this was where we would buy bottles of Grappa for Ray and Peter. It is the home of Grappa afterall. We also discovered that this was market day, and the piazza and every small piazza around it was packed. I realy liked these markets in that while the range of goods was much the same as at all the other markets, the people seemed different. All the country people from the surrounding district had come to town. It seems to be a great opportunity for people to meet once a week. Many of the middle-aged and older men gathered in clusters around the front of bars and cafes to talk. Some of their clothing was amazing. Mismatched shorts and shirts, braces and boots. Battered hats, and some down right funny. On the left hand corner of the piazza, coming up from the bridge, was a shop selling slices of focaccia from huge baking trays, fresh from the oven. It was doing a roaring trade, and we discovred why. We bought a very large slice, simply topped with cherry tomatoes halved and baked into the top. So simple, but so fantastic. We also had a custard doughnut, or Italian equivalent. I bought a bundle of 5 pairs of socks for L10,000. This generated an outburst from Cheryl, that she would just once like to pass through a market, and not have me buy something for myself. She rarely finds anything, I do. We returned to a specialty shop we had identified on the way up to the Piazza, to buy bottles of Apricot and Berry Grappa. Italians from one end of the country to the other love their grappa. Next to wine, they consume more of this than any other alchoholic drink. It is their most popular spirit. Basically, it is a pure distilation of the lees left over from wine production. All the pips and stalks and stems. Not so basically, there are special distilations from certain types of grapes, and we have noted a more expensive type of grappa is labeled as "savignon" grappa. Additionally, they will infuse various fruits in the raw grappa with sugar, to produce a fruit flavoured grappa. I had drunk Grappa in Australia: primarily at the old Bella Vista at Dee Why, where Raphael would serve his specal customer his "cup of friends". This is a large wooden bown with a lid, and five drinking spouts. He would brew up coffee, grappa, sugar and orange peel. He said it originated in his home town, which was the closest to the borders between Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria etc. After a war, peace negotiations would be held here, and they would only drink from a "cup of friends", so that no-one could be poisoned. I don't know what Grappa is, if not poison. You have to hold your breath to drink. Inhaling and drinking at the same time is impossible. I have been assured that the fruit flavoured grappa is easier to drink.
As we had decided to lunch at Trattoria Da Celeste, a "plate" restaurant at Venegazzu, half-way between Bassano del Grappa and Treviso, and then tour the Villa Barbaro at nearby Maser, and it was now after 11.00 am, we decided to abandon our plan of driving up to San Martino di Castrozza. This is about 60 km north of Bassano in the middle of a national park, with ski lifts to the top of the mountains and supposedly stunning views of the Dolomites. It had only been a late addition to our plan, based on something I had read among tourist material back at our apartment. Instead, we reverted to the original plan, which was based on the Eyewitness Guide to Italy. Now, I have been somewhat critical about some aspects of this publication, and today was one of them. In the introductory map page for "Exploring the Veneto and Friuli", it has the road between Feltre and Belluno marked as "Scenic route". It shows the road flanked by the Dolomites, with deer grazing in pine forests. That is why I had included it in our itinerary. The drive from Bassano to Feltre is very pretty and scenic, as it winds up into the mountains beside the Brenta River. The Dolomites themselves were shrouded in a smoggy haze, but we pressed on. Now this was a day trip that I had been anticipating for a year or more. This was realy going to be special. We drove through Feltre, and into a valley that runs from west to east. Thirty kilometres of major dissapointment. The only thing vaguely scenic about it, is that the Dolomites are right there on your left. Barely visible through the smog. Occasionaly OK for the driver, but the passenger is on the wrong side of the car to see much. It is just one long valley of intensive agriculture and industry (hence the smog). The road is lined with towns the whole way, and it is only when you see the size of the hospital buildings at Belluno that you appreciate how densly populated the area is. I was realy pissed off. It had take hours of driving and hadn't delivered anything remotly scenic. Ten kilometres through Bellano, we enter the Autostrada that runs from here and runs to Venice. The Eyewitness guide had raved about the stunning views from Bellano. I no longer trust its judgement on what is "scenic" or "spectacular". The Autostrada drops down out of the Dolomites at a great rate, and there are sections of the road built on bridges high above the gourges below, with some good scenery, but hardly worth a special trip to see.We took the Conegliano off ramp, and headed across country to the south-west to Vennegazzu.
Lunch at Trattoria da Celeste didn't get off to a good start in that we arrivd at close to 2.00, having made three passes through the town, before discovering it off a side road. Most people were nearing the end of their meal, and they were a pretty well dressed and well healed lot. I was wearing shorts and sandles. The waiter wore a bowtie. It was very, very hot, and not much cooler inside. The waiter had no English at all. Not that great a problem in that it is a fixed price, fixed menu restaurant. Realy not entitled to call itself a trattoria, depite the fixed menu concept, in that it is pricey, and at a Trat. you are supposed to retain your cutlery from one course to the next, and it is all about inexpensive dining through reducing the overheads of service etc. Never mind, the meal was enjoyable. Proseco to cool down. But how do we explain that we requir the "plate" dish to qualify for the plate, when it is a fixed menu. The waiter and I adjourned to the kitchen and foyer to mime to each other. He started by pointing at a range of bowls of foods layed out in the kitchen, while slabs of pork rotated on a rotisserie over an open fire. I pointed to the "plate" in the catalogue advertising the "Boun Ricordo" restaurants. We eventually determined that, the special dish was actually a "primo" rather than "secondo". Now that's realy different. Back at the table, in answer to Cheryl's question, I could only advise that food would be coming but I wasn't sure what or when.
Four small fried patties were delivered as the antipasti. While I went to the car to get a koala to give the waiter as a gift, the "primo" was delivered. Cheryl immediatly latched on to the Tortelini stuffed and sauced with a chicken liver and mushroom "pate". It was the plate dish. I was satisfied with a cold pasta salad. Very similar to the Farro salad we had had at La Ceragetta near Isola Santa, with pasta substituted for the farro. Our secondo was the roast pork, with a huge platter of roast potatoes, spinach and small stuffed squash/pumpkin. Very orange puree. Cheryl notes in her diary that she had a fit of the giggles toward the end of the meal, and doesn't record the desert. This is because by this stage she had poured her glass of wine onto the table, and we were eating out of a large red puddle. Creme caramel. Ches was having trouble identifying birds in paintings on the wall. We fled in embarasment.
Now for the real highlight for the day. It had all been planned around a visit to Villa Barbaro, regarded as the finest of all Palladio Villas, which the Eyewitness Guide to Italy said would be open daily from "pm". Guess what? It bloody well isn't! Now I realy am pissed off. It is only open week-ends. We parked out front with other dissapointed tourists, including a northern European couple, with a "Koalas Crossing" sign on their bumper. BUGGER! I'm still pissed off two weeks later as I write.
Almost made up for it by stopping in Asolo. We parked in the centre of this hilltop, walled town, and wandered the streets for an hour. The story goes, that the Venetian wife of the King of Cyprus, poisoned him in the expectation that Cyprus would then become a Venetian territory. She was exiled here at Asolo, such an idylic spot that the word "asolare" was coined to describe the bittersweet life of enforced idleness, and Robert Browning titled a volume of poems, Asolanda. (Thanks to the Eyewitness Guide for this information). Wonderful views out over the plain below, and chalming streets lined with loggias, and some very smart shops.
On the return journey, we went the route that I ha planned for the morning but missed, and we detoured briefly to drive around Cittadella. It's claim to fame is that it is a walled town like Montagnana. Its moat is wider and deeper, the walls are similar to Montagnana, but not quite as good a condition. Unfortunately we didn't have time to stop and simply drove through the town, photographed a section of the walls, and drove on home to Barbarano.
