Asiago - the place.

Yesterday I was looking at the map that lives in my phone for an interesting place to visit. It turns out that the town of Asiago (of cheese fame) is only about a 90 minute drive southeast of Trento on a plateau surrounded by mountains (it also turns out that a lot of things here are surrounded by mountains). I decided to go, because: 1) I like cheese and 2) I don't need another reason. Sweet dreams are made of cheese (Who am I to diss a brie?).

On my phone-dwelling map I can search for "viewpoints". They are typically spots on trails that afford a nice view. My plan was to drive to the trail head that lead to an aforementioned viewpoint and hike in the morning before heading into Asiago for lunch and afternoon exploring. There are no large (i.e., straight) roads that go in the direction of Asiago from Trento. There are, however, lots of mountain roads with hairpin blind curves. These mountain roads are dotted with two meter poles to measure the snow. I'm also pretty sure that at least half of the roads are just under 1 and 7/8 car widths wide. I used to think that the scariest thing about these roads were seeing that they also had bus stops. Turns out that it's actually realizing that those slippery when frozen signs aren't for show. Everything went fine, there was nothing to fear but fear itself, but I'm not at all sure why three winters and natural selection hasn't rendered this part of Italy devoid of anyone with a driver's license.

The hike started in a little town called Roana. I parked at a run-down camp ground and started down a barely marked trail through what I assume was a semi active logging operation. I had to use my phone map a few times to find the trail and thought, "'Ah, see I go' my own way". I was worried that this hike was going to be a dud, happily it didn't take long for the trail to surrounded by mature evergreens. The "viewpoint" was actually a sinkhole. Which sounds depressing (see what I did there?), but was actually interesting and a pleasant place to sit and have some peanuts and banana chips. It is named Buso Stonhaus and is at an elevation of 1372 meters. The only advertisement that it existed was a sign posted ten feet away. I'm pretty sure that most of the residents of Roana have never heard of Buso Stonhaus.

I made it in to Asiago just in time for a late-ish lunch. I missed/drove by the lot I had planned on parking. I serendipitously found some parking at the base of a large military monument/memorial that I had no previous knowledge of. First things first, I head toward the town center to find some lunch. I past about six restaurants that were closed, so the first one that I saw open I ducked into. I had a decent pizza (with porchetta), a local red beer, and a coffee. Wikipedia denies porchetta as "a savoury, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast". I agree. After lunch, I returned to the car, retrieved the camera, and took some photos (see below). After wandering around Asiago (the town) for a few hours I stopped by a little shop and bought some Asiago (the cheese) to take home. The roads remained curvy.