La grappa di Ponte Bassano nel Bassano del Grappa (Grappa from the Bridge of Bassano)

Once a year, or whenever I can, I like to make a trip to the small provincial town of Bassano del Grappa, that rests under snow covered Monte Grappa at the northern edge of the Veneto Plain, where it touches the Dolomites.
 
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Partly I am drawn there by the town’s beauty: the magnificent castle, the many churches, the market that fills the cobbled streets between the tall houses and above all by the unique covered bridge that aesthetically, in my view, excels even the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Its simple timber balustrades with its stunning views have been the subjects of prints and paintings for hundreds of years. It is a dream of mine that one day I may be able to fly fish for the trout, whose dark shadows can be seen basking under the wooden piles of the bridge and in the calm pools on the side of the weir.
 

I am also moved deeply by Bassano’s history, particularly by its association with the First World War. Situated at the bottom of a cleft of Monte Grappa, the winding road up to the war memorial on the summit was the one described in ‘A Farewell To Arms’, still my favorite novel of Ernest Hemingway. The bridge is associated with Italy’s most famous and toughest mountain regiment, the Alpini, which is headquartered in the town. A few years ago, on a visit, I found the bridge was full of veterans in their distinctive feathered hats singing their many martial songs under the beams. The chill and tragedy of that cold, white war in the passes, so evocatively described by Hemingway and lately in Mark Thompson’s majestic history of that campaign ‘The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919’ is still a ghostly presence.
 

Finally, I use the occasion to stock up with possibly the best grappa in the world – and where better to buy it than the ancient oak paneled shop of Nardini that sits on the western end of the bridge itself? “BASSANO – al PONTE dal 1779” is the proud claim on the bottle – and every sip of it is as clean and bracing as the Monte Grappa snow from which it comes.

Photos © Hong Ying