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Published: June 14th 2017
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Geo: 45.7446, 11.6555
We had arranged to meet Nonno and Nonna in the little village of Santa Catarina di Luisana, in the hills behind Bassano, as this is the village that Nonna's mother and father came from. We arrived, after a very pretty drive from Marostica, to be met by a woman we had never seen before, saying "you must be Rita's son – I'll give you my car park!" No doubting that it is a small town – she turned out to be Anna, the wife of Rita's cousin.
We waited for a while in the car park, looking at the war memorial which has dozens of Steven's fore-bearers on it, and only a few dozen names in total. Then, Rita and Elio arrived – they had been to the bank where the ATM swallowed Rita's card to try and retrieve it, but it must be sent to Australia – then we were bustled up the road to Ubaldo and Anna's house. They have been renovating the house where Rita's Zio Tony used to live (we had visited it previously, when it been dark and small) – now it is light, airy and they have extended it to be three apartments (all
two bedroom and a kitchen/sitting room). It is difficult to reconcile it with the place that I remember – but the cattle stalls are still in the next room (though now, there are no cows in it, which changes things a lot!) The house would have been where Rita's mother was born, and possibly where her father was born too – it has always been the Pozza family home. We had a lovely lunch, but it was probably a hard day for the kids as there wasn't much for them to do other than play in the farmyard (thank God for ipods!!).
After lunch, we made our goodbyes, and headed to Marostica. It is a lovely town, with a castle on the hill overlooking the town, another castle in the centre of town and wonderful medieval walls linking the two. In the middle of the main piazza in town, is a giant chess board, and every second year a chess game is played with real people as the chess pieces. They re-enact an ancient story, about a king with two daughters, and two suitors who both wanted to win the hand of the eldest daughter. Rather than a duel, the
king had the suitors play a game of chess. The kids and Steven played a game themselves, being pawns and knights and queens, and we enjoyed a walk around the square before driving to the upper castle, for a lovely view of the Veneto plains. (Steven took the kids up onto the walls – he said it was terrifying, as there were no proper barricades! They came straight back down!) Then back to Asolo, to grab some groceries (the pet shop at the shopping centre has a large Macaw parrot wandering around!) before meeting Nonno and Nonna back at our little home at Asolo. Like us, they were impressed with our little home, and had an evening passigato (walk) around town as it was still light at 9pm.
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