A day in Bassano del Grappa
The day began with a tour of three apartments in Vicenza’s Centro. Two were excellent. One of which will likely end up being our home — after much debate. The third was workable, but will not make the cut.
D1 and D2 have made fast friends at the Ederle Inn. Their social calendar can’t quite accommodate time with the parents. Thus, the wife, a friend and I decided a day trip to Bassano del Grappa was in order.
We had heard from several sources that Bassano is a charming, little town that produces excellent grappa and has a marvelous pedestrian bridge.
The trip took about 45 minutes through a number of back roads. The Garmin I purchased stateside, along with the European map pack, came in handy — though the Garmin kept locking up once we got to Bassano. Luckily, the Mrs. guided us using Google Maps.
Sorry for the crummy photo quality, but I thought this motorcycle grappa bottle was cool. Don’t know if the liquid was worth nearly 107 euro, however.
I thought this was a cool storefront. The Mrs. swears the shopkeep was giving me the stink-eye as I took this photo.
Alora!
We wandered around.
We came upon this place.
Being a cultural historian at heart, I thought the least I could do was do some research.
“Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, they’re beautiful!” The stills look like something out of The Golden Age of Wireless.
All the mad skills required to make this stuff.
I mean check out that thingy below? Is that an incubator for the queen from “Aliens”?
Another terrible photo to our left. Very strangely lit room, but featuring a portion of the world’s largest collection of grappa mignons. I’m easily impressed, so I thought this was awesome. The only thing missing was the opportunity to pop a few of these puppies.
If you’ve got a couple of grappa minis around, these guys are on the prowl.
The bridge got a lot busier a few hours later. When we first crossed, it was rather quiet.
On either side of the bridge were Grappa stores and bars/tasting rooms.
We ended up drinking two superb grappas from Capovilla in a beautiful bar that had this bizarre, hirsute art installation thingy on the ceiling. If she got a Brazilian, I think it would have been less disconcerting.
Let’s roll out of Bassano on a positive note.
Ciao, ciao, ciao!
