Bassano e Venezia

While we were staying in Padova, we took a couple of beautiful side trips. One  was high up into the mountains above Bassano del Grappa, to the home of the couple who my friend S lived with when we studied in Italy. They've moved out of Padova to the country, where they now have a stunning view of the Veneto region from their mountainside village.

After a walk up at altitude, they came with us back down to Bassano for a tour of the town, including the lovely vista from a famous bridge in town...

...the best gelato in Bassano...

...and, for SR, an introduction to grappa, the hard liquor native to Bassano (made from the pulp/dregs of wine grapes). Hats off to him for finishing this shot, which had a relatively mild (for grappa) 40% alcohol content. Just smelling the stuff burns the hairs out of my nose.

We also (no-brainer!) of course had to spend a day in Venice, which is just two train stops away from Padova. After braving the tourist hordes to get a water taxi down the Grand Canal (and really wishing, smashed up against so many other people, that we were those lucky ducks in the private gondola, instead!)...
 

...out to San Marco, we decided the best thing to do was to try to get as far away from the other tourists as possible. So we started walking away from the canal, and any time we came to an intersection, we'd turn in whatever direction we saw the fewest people. This kept us happily lost wandering around the Castello and Cannaregio neighborhoods for the better part of a day.

Bliss!