Odd Job Italiano: Back to Italy

Tuesday 6th Oct

Unfortunately had to leave Slovenia to return to Italy, but as we were headed for Venice all good. The drive through the Fruili area was very picturesque,mountainous, lots of vegetation and cute little towns, We were headed for a town out of Treviso, San Trovaso, as it had a train station with direct train to Venice. This is a very heavily populated area, can't tell where one town ends and another starts and traffic ghastly. It's like they have four rush hours, because with workers heading home for long break in the middle of the day and then returning, and then school ending around 1pm, there are multitudinous cars on the road.

Hours ended up being devoted to finding a Peugot service centre as a warning light had developed on the car dashboard after filling up in Croatia. The book seemed to indicate go directly to a peugot dealer for diagnostics as it was an engine fault but the car was still running fine, so mum's the word, he who must be obeyed decided it could wait til we were back in Italy. Hours later ended up no problem, fault due to Euro 6 pollution standard requirements, issue with diesel high spec requirements computer gets it's knickers in a knot deciding how much AdBlue to add after tank topped up so throws up an error.

After dumping bags in Hotel, drove over to Bassano Dal Grappa. Bassano lovely old town with famous Palladio-designed bridge. Old centre looked a bit tired this time and the bridge was having it's black and white marble chequered floor redone, so a bit disappointing really but still the bridge is still a beautiful sight to behold. We did a bit of windowshopping, had a snack and then drove back to San Trovaso.

Closest food for tea was Osteria Ombre Rosse which looked promising when we entered, sort of atmospheric winebar ambience... but that was the last good impression we had. They fancied themselves as wine connoisseurs and all the local intelligentsia of Treviso were there sniffing and snorting. Of course we got them offside when Frank asked for a birra....waiter went away and came back "no birra", next sin, OK We'll have a half litre of house red - no had to have a bottle. Kitchen didn't open til 8, so no menu til well after that....what? they didn't know what they were cooking?
But really it was front of house mumma and papa who excelled in customer service...not. The food was presented as though the virgin mary had shat it out and really was very ordinary, as in ok, not inedible but hohum and at the high end price-wise. Oh Well, all part of the fun.