Brenta River - Points of Interest

The Brenta River begins near lakes Caldonazzo and Levico in the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, in the comune of Caldonazzo, Trento province, at an elevation of about 449 m (1,473 ft), and flows for more than 174 kilometres (108 mi) into the Adriatic Sea to the south of the city of Venice. The Brenta, together with the Piave river, formed the Venetian Lagoon.

Below you will find just a few points of interest in the area of Bassano del Grappa.

Museo degli Alpini​ - the Museum of the Alpines

The Museo degli Alpini of Bassano del Grappa , founded in 1950, is a museum dedicated to the collection of artefacts and testimonies of the First World War .

It offers the visitor the opportunity to relive the memory linked to the Great War through a journey that recalls the history, values, feelings and deeds of the Alpini . It is located in the basement of the "Taverna degli Alpini" in Bassano del Grappa located in the immediate vicinity of the Ponte Vecchio (degli Alpini) and is an important stopover for an exhaustive visit to the Bassano area.

Inside the museum, directly managed by the local section of the ANA Monte Grappa, some artefacts from the First World War are preserved ; these relics come mainly from the Asiago plateau , Monte Grappa and private donations. In addition to objects ( helmets , bombs , splinters, reticulars ) you can also see vintage photos, manuscripts and some of the sheets that the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio threw on the city of Vienna during his propaganda action in August 1918 remembered as " flight over Vienna ".

THE PONTE VECCHIO - The Bridge of the Alpini in Bassano del Grappa

The bridge was first documented in 1209, a wooden structure on pylons with a roof cover that constituted the main communication route between Bassano and Vicenza.

Being at the centre of the frequent fights amongst rival factions, it was destroyed and rebuilt several times until, in 1567, after yet another collapse due to the flooding of the river Brenta, the design of a new bridge was commissioned to the great architect Andrea Palladio. Palladio’s project envisaged the construction of a stone bridge in the guise of the ancient Roman ones, but the city council rejected it and ordered the architect not to deviate too much from the original structure.

In the summer of 1569 Palladio presented a second project: a visually striking wooden bridge recalling the previous structure, although radically renewed for the proposed technical and structural solutions, with 5 spans that rested on four intermediate pylons. The Palladian structure survived for almost two hundred years, collapsing only after the devastating flood of the river Brenta on August 19, 1748. The bridge was then rebuilt by Bartolomeo Ferracina faithfully following Palladio’s design. In 1813 the bridge was burned down by the Viceroy Eugenio di Beauharnais and later rebuilt by Angelo Casarotti, in 1821, again maintaining its earlier shape. During the First World War the bridge was crossed by the Italian troops of General Luigi Cadorna on their way to defend the territories of the area of Sette Comuni. On February 17, 1945, during an action of the partisans, the bridge was again destroyed and later rebuilt according to the original design of Palladio, at the hands of the Alpini Troops... This is the why it is now called the Bridge of the Alpini!

POLI GRAPPA DISTILLERY AND MUSEUM

Poli Distillerie is an artisan Grappa distillery solely owned by the Poli family, founded in 1898 in Schiavon, near Bassano del Grappa, in the hearth of Veneto, Italy. The distillery is currently run by Jacopo Poli together with his siblings Giampaolo, Barbara and Andrea. The raw material from which Grappa is made is the grape pomace, the skin of the grape, and what is left after the grape is crushed in order to make wine.

The Poli Distillery gathers the grape-pomace from an area that ranges from Bassano del Grappa to the hills surrounding Marostica and Breganze, lands historically famous for the cultivation of grape vines and for the production of Grappa.

Poli Distillery distill exclusively fresh grape-pomace coming from the wineries of the area. The still is among the oldest in use today. It consists of cauldrons completely made of copper, as in centuries gone by. The distillation cycle is discontinuous. This means that the grape-pomace is put into the cauldrons and distilled using steam; after about three hours the cauldrons are unloaded and the cycle begins again. Visitors are welcome by appointment.

In Bassano del Grappa, in front of the historic wooden bridge "Ponte Vecchio", the Poli Distillery created the Poli Grappa Museum, where the history of distillation and the history of Grappa are illustrated with efficacy in a small but suggestive area, by means of a brief but detailed educational tour. (www.poligrappa.com/eng/)