June 24, 2025
Tessera (Venice)
Part One - to Bassano
The day has finally come when we are entertaining thoughts about going home. Up to this point, we both feel we’ve been living in a bubble and consumed with our incredible everyday experiences. It’s not by design or with intention that the regular mind chatter was being pushed away. No, this was a case of a steady stream of rewards coming our way throughout the day, every single day. And, of course, the beautiful scenery surrounds us and fills our senses. In short, we have been in an ongoing state of awe and gratitude.
Now it’s time to attend to the necessities of returning home. Our plan was to cruise down to Bassano del Grappa and catch a train to Mestre, the city adjacent to Venice, then ride from there to our agriturismo near the airport. We’d checked the train frequency and it looked excellent. We just had to ensure we got in a Regional train so we can just roll our bikes onboard.
Start the Car!
The Canadian Ikea ad from 2004 always makes me chuckle. A woman looks at her bill to see the deals she just got at Ikea then rushes across the parking lot with giant shopping bags filled to the brim and tells her husband to ‘start the car!’. Well, it’s not quite like that here, but we did need to load up the bikes and get- a-move-on. And I don’t exactly jump out of bed willingly. It’s one eyelid at a time, peeking towards the curtains to see how bright the sun is shining. If I see light blazing between the blackout curtains, I roll out of bed and queue David to open them. It’s like opening a present every day. What’s the morning light going to show us today? Invariably, it showcases the mountains and buildings in the local village revealing new perspectives and details in ways we had not seen the day before. Today we had the added bonus of the glistening Brenta river and its gentle burbling coming from the rapids plus the chatter if the Eurasian blackcaps, in an otherwise silent setting. Ahh, life moving slowly and waking up gently. It’s such a treat and one we don’t take for granted.
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We set off after a leisurely breakfast on the outdoor veranda overlooking the river. It was a lazy, short jaunt of 10k, mostly downhill along the Brenta River, to the main historic bridge in Bassano.
Km’s Ridden: 1000 Flats: Zero
Aside from my hyperventilation issues in Corvara, we’d made it the whole way without so much as a scratch or a flat tire. But, as we gingerly navigated an awkward bumpy pathway just a hundred meters from the Bassano bridge, David’s front wheel caught in a crevice and flipped him against a stone wall beside the pathway. His knee took the brunt of his Hail Mary move and saved him from a fall. Ouch! Luckily, it was nothing that a little rubbing and a short walk couldn’t fix. We had just one more ‘einbahn’, as we call riding in violation of a one-way traffic sign, and we arrived at the covered bridge.
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We had envisioned tourist season being in full swing and the bridge to be crawling with people, but that’s not what happened. It was amazingly peaceful with just a handful of people, some transitting while they were doing errands, others socializing. As we took in the views up-river to Monte Grappa, it suddenly struck us as a full-circle moment. That realization of what we’d done 15,900m climbing for me and 17,700m for David, sunk in as we stood there looking up at the mountains.
This bridge is the centrepiece of Bassano and has always been pivotal to the city, since the river splits Bassano in two. I’d seen photos of it as I planned the trip but its significance and beauty did not hit me until I walked across it four weeks ago. I didn’t say too much about it on the first visit but it deserves a mention. Its current name is the Ponti degli Alpini and it has been through many rebuilds following floods, fire, sabotage and bombing since the first bridge was built in 1208. The most recent re-build became necessary after it was bombed by the retreating German army at the end of WWII. Italian Resistance soldiers had been carrying out raids on the Germans; their bullet holes are still visible in the walls of the building beside the bridge. Following that destruction, in 1948 the bridge was rebuilt in the original 16th century design, by the Alpini, Italy’s elite mountain military corps, and named Ponte degli Alpini as a memorial to those who fell in battle.
The train station is just to the west of the compact, old city which we were pretty familiar with by now. We made our way past the B&B we’d stayed at and through the centre of town. Things were strangely but very pleasantly quiet. We recalled our host, Julie, telling us that Bassano is crowded on the weekends but didn’t realize that it would still be quiet now that it’s the last week of June. I recommend adding it to your itinerary if you are heading this way.
Before heading to the train/bus station, I had one last place to check out. We had not taken the time to see the Viale dei Martiri last visit, and I didn’t want to leave before doing so. It’s an avenue along the city wall that faces Monte Grappa. As you can guess from its name, it is in honour of the martyrs, the resistance fighters who were hanged and left for three days, at the end of World War II.
Viale dei Martiri, or Martyrs' Avenue, is a tree-lined street where 31 Italian partisan resistance members were rounded up and hanged on each tree by Nazi forces on September 26, 1944. There they hung for three days. In each tree, there is a plaque with the name and, if known, a photo of the executed partisan. The massacre was part of a larger operation called the "Grappa roundup," where Nazi and fascist forces sought to quell partisan activity in the area through a cowardly display of force, a horrific warning to others who might resist. About 300 partisans were rounded up and murdered that week, many in and around the villages of Carpane and Solagna, which we rode through along the Brenta. It is somber reminder of the Nazi occupation of Italy during World War II and the brutal suppression of resistance movements.
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Part Two - Tessera
After that sombre visit, we cycled over to the train station and bought tickets for the train to Mestre. It left in 20 minutes. The uneventful trip took an hour with all the local stops included. We rolled the bikes off the train, quite literally. Often there are three steps to the platform but this train had none so we didn’t have lift the bikes. What a treat!
I had plotted the route to our agriturismo in Tessera from Mestre, so we hopped on the Fridays and were off on a very complex route, turning this way and that, crossing tracks, passing canals, going around roundabouts, on cycle paths and then off cycle paths until we finally recognized the cornfield near our place. Thank you, again cycle.travel. This app has been a blessing, guiding us through the entire trip with ease. I’ll be sending a tip to the owner in the coming days to top up my meagre monthly contribution.
We were early for check-in, it was just 1:30, so we stopped at a nearby restaurant for lunch. The temperature had soared to 32 degrees by then so we parked in the shade on the patio and went inside. What a pleasant surprise. The restaurant was air conditioned. Neither of us could finish the triple decker sandwich and fries we’d ordered, but we certainly enjoyed what we ate. The coke and lemon soda were inhaled as soon as they were put down on the table.
As the group of four at the table next to us got up to leave, the young Moldovian man presented us with a bottle of Prosecco from his friend’s vineyard. He’d been visiting and had too many bottles to take on the plane, which he was about to get on. So, he decided we should have one. Ok, twist my rubber arm! We gladly accepted, thanked him and wished him a good flight home. Now, how is that for a way to end a cycle tour? We can’t make this stuff up. It just happens.
At 2:30, I Whatsapped the B&B to ask if we could check in. They replied, of course, we are waiting for you. We paid up and we walked out into the sauna-like conditions, then cruised the 100m or so to the Venicegreen Agritourismo.
We’re here for two nights and were happy to see they had booked us into one of their cabanas. The receptionist hopped on her golf cart and guided us over to number 6 as we secretly wished for a unit that was in the shade. Our cabana was in the shade but we needn’t have been concerned because it, too, was air conditioned. Yay! We flopped out for a while, popped the prosecco cork and celebrated a successful and safe tour.
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For dinner we strolled along the small lane between the wheat and the corn fields to the same restaurant we had dined at when the trip started. The food, service, the tunes and the beers were all great. We ordered and enjoyed two dishes I will surely be making when we get home, caccio è pepe and roast chicken breast on a bed of arugula with Parmesan shavings and cherry tomatoes. And, yes, there was affogato for dessert.
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Today's ride: 24 km (15 miles)
Total: 1,021 km (634 miles)
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