Monte Grappa's hiding in among that fog somewhere.
B&B Al Lauro
July 1 - Jul2, 2010--2 nights
After leaving Cortina d'Ampezzo, a move which, in hindsight, was premature, if needed at all, we headed towards Treviso with our main goals of visiting the Pinarello factory and the Pinarello store and to make a visit to the great city of Venice (worthy of a sentence all by itself!).
Perhaps we should have done a better job of investiating the weather in northern Italy in June and July. Perhaps we would have adapted our schedule to have stayed in the mountains a few days longer.
It was dreadfully HOT, and HUMID to boot. I've been in Mississippi in July after a thunderstorm. This was not that bad. But being from California it was far more uncomfortable than we're used to with our "dry" heat. Like I said, if we'd known we would have stayed at altitude.
Driving around Treviso was an interesting mess. The poor Garmin was next to useless. We looked all over for the Tourism office with, and ultimately without, the GPS. We weren't terribly impressed with any of the lodging options we were seeing there. So we opted to move out towards Castelfranco Veneto, which I'd seen in earlier research on the area around Monte Grappa.
Oh, but first, we did make it to the Pinarello factory in Treviso. We arrived on a Thursday, and it was closed for inventory through the following Tuesday. So much for checking for possible conflicts--I'd researched their operating hours, local festivals, and tide charts and I thought we had it clear. Didn't think of inventory. The building itself was nice, and we could see stuff through the windows and they had a nice display of bikes in the front of the building. We made an appointment to come back to the factory the following Tuesday but, in the end, we blew it off and didn't return to Treviso after leaving and looking for lodging north of town.
We went to see the Pinarello store, too, and it was a little bit of a letdown. It wasn't much bigger than, say, a run-of-the-mill strip mall location. Maybe 30 feet wide, 100 feet deep. They had a few bikes lined up, and clothes all over the place. But it wasn't Charlie and the Chocolate Factory kind of stuff. We weren't awestruck and overwhelmed. It was just a bike shop, I guess. The one thing I did learn about was Passo Boldo
On the wall of one of the dressing rooms was placed a picture of Fausto Coppi racing up Passo San Boldo in one of the Giri di Italia. It's an awesome looking piece of engineering. Look carefully--the hairpins are tunneled into the mountain at each end. I don't know how difficult a climb it was, but it looked awesome. I wasn't able to do any research on its location in time to be able to visit it. It was not very far from Treviso, though.
So. . . lodging. After leaving Treviso we arrived in Castelfranco, located the Tourism office only to discover it had closed at noon that day. Not knowing what else to do, we continued looking at different cities and towns nearby and ended up in Asolo--a name I'd recognized from the 2010 Giro. The race passed through Asolo on their way up Monte Grappa on Stage 14 before finishing in Asolo.
We found a Tourism office there in Asolo, and a reference to some guy that owned a clothing store nearby. He showed us the room and we were completely frightened of the man and his room. He was kind of creepy. The rooms were dark and hot. We didn't see any immediate relief from the heat in the form of AC and, this being Thursday night, he told us the cleaning lady wouldn't be back until the following Monday. Nuh-uh. We told him we had to check out one other place and we'd get back to him and then we got out of there, and out of Asolo, as quickly as we could.
Thereafter, we weren't sure what we were going to do. It was beginning to look like we might really end up spending the night in the car. I'd remembered seeing the name of a little town not far from Asolo, it had shown up in the hotel/B&B listing we'd picked up at the Asolo Tourism office--B&B Al Lauro. We thought maybe "Al Lauro" was a guy's name, but it was in reference to a little hamlet called Lauro and "B&B Al Lauro" translated into Lauro B&B.
As we approached Lauro, we saw several farm houses, none of which looked the least bit inviting as a B&B. We could see a house down the road that looked newer and, as we approached it, the address numbers were coinciding properly. Then, there it was--a SIGn--B&B Al Lauro. Just as we were driving up, the owner was stepping out the front door. If we'd been 5 minutes later he would have been gone and our search would have had to continue. A GREAT family, though. It turned out to be a terrific find.
The only bad thing was they could only keep us Thursday and Friday nights, they were booked for Saturday. Which led to another search for a place to stay on Saturday afternoon.
In any event, you know, I don't even think we learned the owners' names. There are a couple of names mentioned in the website, but I'm not sure which was appropriate. Whatever their names were, they were very nice, very nice, pleasant people. They built the B&B after the owner's mother died. The family lived in the house next door (about 200 yards down the road). When the mother died, the father farmed a few more years, then had to give it up. They kept the property, built the B&B, and the father lives in half the building, the other half has 4 guest rooms, and a large ground floor with a kitchen and eating area. It really was quite nice.
The prices were very reasonable based on what we'd seen so far. 50 euros/day for the two of us, breakfast included. There was no half board option. The rooms were very comfortable, very clean, new, and AIR CONDITIONED.
The breakfast was what we'd become accustomed to. . . basic stuff. Linda raved about the coffee. She said it was the best we'd had all trip.
The location was fine--close to the foot of Monte Grappa, which we rode on Saturday. We took the train from Castelfranco to Venice on Friday. And it was hot all the while. Even the owners were complaining about the heat and humdidity.
I would highly recommend the B&B al Lauro if you have reason to be in that vicinity. There was a nice little family-run restaurant just up the road--Al Lauro Ristorante Pizzeria. We ate there at least three times over the few days we were there.
I'd just suggest that you go before May, or after August.
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