Bassano and pastries

Merry-go-round and an unsuspecting little girl in Bassano

Today I went to visit Bassano which apparently is very famous for its grappa. Grappa is not really my cup of tea, so to speak, but the town was nice. It's full of chocolate shops, cafes, and now coming up to Christmas, there is also the mandatory Mercatino di Natale with a merry-go-round and mulled wine. The landscape there is beautifully non-flat, which makes me unreasonably happy, and in fact I liked the atmosphere in the town so much that I would not be entirely opposed to even living there one day.

Plastic ice!

There was an ice rink too, except that you can imagine my shock as I went closer to look at this wonder, and realised that the ice wasn't actually ice but plastic! I can assure you I have never seen that before. People skating on plastic ice... Only in Italy!

We took a cup of hot chocolate from this lovely little chocolate shop near the old bridge. I would have taken a photo of the shop but didn't quite have the courage to do so, so I only took a pic of the sign. If you ever find yourself in Bassano, this place does good cioccolata calda da passeggiata (hot chocolate for walking). It tasted a lot like my mum's home made suklaakiisseli (choc pudding), and was marginally more runny than the usual Italian hot chocolate which you have to eat with a spoon (as I have already previously described in some post...) but this "walking hot chocolate" is still nothing like the hot chocolate we are used to in other countries. I'm actually starting to think that all these years my mum has been making Italian hot chocolate without even knowing it. Oh and even today I also had ice cream too. The unholy combination of hot and cold chocolate all in one day!

When I came home it seems I still hadn't had my dose of calories and sugar, so I set about making some prune jam and Finnish joulutorttu Christmas pastries. And then I ate them all. (Ok, I didn't make a huge amount of them, but still!)

A lovely chocolate shop in Bassano

Joulutorttuja