Food of the day:
Asparagus: Bassano is famous for a special white, stringless variety. Tastes the same as the green.
Vitello e tonnollo - this slices of veal with a tuna sauce and capers. A delightful meal accompanied by spinach and aqua frizzante.
Word of the day:
Secco - dry. We asked our waiter, Silvano, for white house wine. He offered two choices - one was unrecognisable and the other was "secco". I interpreted this as meaning "sweet" and so I said "non-secco". Unfortunately I wasn't paying enough attention to Anne, who was a step ahead of me and had realised that the word in fact meant dry, as it is basically the same as the French equivalent, which she knew.
Frizzante - no special magic here - just a lovely onomatopoeic word, meaning fizzy. All meals come with the choice of aqua naturale or aqua frizzante. We mostly choose the latter. With the whole country peppered with mountains, there is a new source and label in almost every town.
Bassano is a very pleasant town - not too big and not too touristy. Of course there are the some well-known tourist areas, but they are manageable. Bassano is not an overwhelming place as others such as the more popular cities of Rome, Florence etc can be. It was an easy drive from our little village into town, and parking was not too much of a hassle.
There is an old covered bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, with sloping channels of stone on either side of the path, and a new bridge. The river is wide and swiftly flowing in parts, with some geese and ducks paddling round. Most tourists seem to be other Italians or Germans, not too many Americans. We heard a couple of Australian voices. Bicycles are v common in the town. We saw one little old granny, about 80 yrs old, wearing a frilly dress and court shoes, no helmet, ride out into the traffic, two lanes and driving fairly fast, but she came to no harm. Generally the drivers are quite courteous to bike riders - there are so many cycles, and the roads are so narrow, they are used to slowing down for them.
There are the usual piazzas and some grand old buildings in Bassano. One of the old palazzos has been converted into a museum, where we saw two excellent exhibitions on ceramics, another thing apart from asparagus that Bassano is famous for, and printing. There was a renowned printing family in the town for centuries. The Remondini family were an important employer in town and beyond, printing and publishing educational, religious, government and other material. There was an interesting story about their expansion. They provided itinerant salesmen with experience and contacts in southern Germany with stock and funds, and the salesmen would wander around, sometimes for years, selling the goods, until their stocks ran out. The reach of this network ended up expanding to distant places such as Russia, until at one point the local priest commented that his parishioners might not be seen for up to 4 years! One whole side of the main square still consists of the buildings formerly used by the Remondini business.
On our last day there we bought some delicious local produce from the weekly market that takes over several streets in the centre of town. Perfect for a picnic lunch. Sometimes a simple lunch is much the best.
Ride report from Marcus
We had a better day on the bikes today (Tuesday). Daniele met us again at 9am and we played out another mime in which he asked my opinion as to whether I thought the Col di Gallo would be a good idea. Even though I slowly realised (from mime) that a Gallo was a chook, this was of no help in determining the suitability of the proposed itinerary. Without any ability to do much more advanced communication than sign language, what could I do but say "yes".
It turned out to be a good call. We rode along the river valley and crossed to the east about 8k north. At that point we went through the small town of Cismon del Grappa, and then began to climb along a closed off road, now reserved for non-motorised passage. Like so many of the climbs we'd done, this was windy and shady - a lovely combination - and hard enough to be worthwhile without being too taxing. After a few kilometres we hit the peak and then dropped for a while to a very beautiful man-made lake, complete with the usual sights of church tower, terracotta roofing and so on, and with the added extra of a beach complete with beach hut and the name "Rocca Beach Club". Two brave souls were doing Australian crawl, bogan-style with their heads out of the water, out towards a pole.
After a while more we approached the small town of Arsie and a view of the chicken that lay in wait. It was another leafy, windy climb, and in about 45 minutes we were passed by only two vehicles and saw no-one else - just a few seemingly deserted farm houses.
The road back down was delightful - at least 5 or 6 kilometres entirely to ourselves, almost all in the shade. Near the bottom, we passed some WW1 fortifications built to defend against the Austro-Hungarians. They in turn had been built in a much older strategic location - the road was the site of the Via Augusta, the ancient road from Bavaria to Venice.
All in all today's ride was 50k with barely a vehicle, on generally smooth roads with the two major climbs both shaded for much of their length. We did about 800m climbing in the 50k, so it was pretty hilly - a bit more than Anne wanted. Other than that, it was just right.
We arrived back in town shortly after 1pm and had a delightful lunch of prosciutto and melon, veal with a creamy tuna sauce and capers (an odd combination from an Australian perspective, but very fine tasting), and yummy spinach. Beer for Marcus and aqua naturale for Anne. This afternoon is for washing and relaxing before a day in town tomorrow.
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