We woke to a dreary, foggy Venice morning, packed our overnight bag for our two days in Bassano del Grappa and went to catch the vaporetto for the train station. Here is our dreary morning walk.

Those of you who have read our adventures before may remember that we have had a history with Italian trains, namely taking the “ghost train” to nowhere. We hung around the train platform for awhile this morning to make sure other people were getting on the train and finally got on, heard the announcement that the train was going to Bassano del Grappa and breathed easier. The only trains (for the most part) that run this route are regionale, or regional, ones and we caught the quickest one. That meant it only stopped about every 5 to 7 minutes as opposed to every 3 to 5. It was comfortable, the scenery nice and the ride only about an hour and 20 minutes, all for 5.20 euros each. Can’t beat that. Bassano del Grappa was also foggy and dreary but we finally found our B&B, were given a drink and chips and checked in. The B&B is Palazzo Remondini and is very nice. Only three rooms run by a very enthusiastic young man named Alessandro. After settling in, we went looking for lunch which turned out to be more difficult than we thought as all the restaurants closed at 2 and the town shuts down until 3:30! We finally found a bar that had tramezzini which is a Venetian area half-sandwich on decrusted white bread, often made with tuna salad, egg salad, or chicken salad. We were very pleased to find this much.
After eating we walked around quite a bit, over the Ponte Vecchio (originally designed by Palladio. It spans the Brenta River and on a clear day you can see the Alps from it.


There are several grappa distilleries in the area and, as Alan really enjoys grappa (I think it is like drinking gasoline), we wanted to come here. Although they share a name, grappa is actually not named after the town but comes from the word graspa which means dregs. It is what is made from the stems, seeds, etc. that are left after the wine is made. Perhaps some people in the area get a little carried away with their grappa. Here is an ad for grappa flavored toothpaste!

We continued to walk around, and finally went to the Palazzo Sturm which has an amazing view of the Ponte Vecchio and the Brenta and which also houses the Museo Remondini and the Museo della Ceramica. The Remondini family were early paper makers and printers and there is a wonderful exhibit about them and their paper making and print making and includes early books and prints by Durer, Magnana, and Rembrandt. Since we are staying in the Palazzo Remondini, it was fun to see what our rooms were used for when this was both a residence and an factory. I also dragged Alan through the ceramics museum. Over the years, he has seen more soup tureens than he ever knew existed and I appreciate him always coming with me to see the ceramics.
After resting for a short while back at the B&B (it’s on the 4th floor, no elevator), we went out to dinner at Trattoria el Piron which is nearby. We had a lovely meal, starting with bacala crostini, then Alan had bigoli with a duck ragu. For our main course I had a thinly cut steak with a pink peppercorn sauce and Alan had a grilled branzino. No pictures of those, but wait, here comes the food porn! For dessert we had a walnut and prune torte. That we did get a picture of!

Tomorrow morning we meet our docent Sharla from Context Travel for a Bassano del Grappa tour which we assume will include a trip to one of the distilleries. More then, if we are physically capable of writing..