When we got close to the festival, traffic got heavy but we managed to find parking about a mile from the festival. The walk wasn't that bad because this part of Italy is beautiful. We walked through a little town and past a huge WWI monument up on a hill that was the burial place of a couple hundred thousand Austrian and Italian soldiers. There are still thousands of these soldiers who are unidentified. We were going to stop by the monument on the way back to the car but we passed it and were too tired & hot to turn back & hike up the hill so we missed it. Our friend did visit the monument though and I'll try to get pics from her. The town had lots of stores and even a 99 cent store (in Euro of course). We didn't go in there either but it looked crowded and popular.
From the little town it was hard to see where the festival actually was. We passed an open air market and we finally stopped to ask a local where the plaza was. I spoke to him in Italian and besides mispronouncing the name of the plaza, I think he understood me. I understood most of what he was saying too but one of our friends had to show him the flyer for the cheese festival for him to understand the plaza name. After his directions we were on our way again & not 5 minutes later we were there! The area smelled like fresh cut wood because there were carved statues of goddesses and hunters placed in various areas outside the market. Jonathan had the camera but didn't get any pictures of them unfortunately.
The market was smaller than I expected, taking up only about half an acre & with only about 5 cheese vendors set up under yellow tents. For a cheese festival I thought it would be a HUGE area with at least 10 cheese vendors. The vendors that were there sold quite a few different types of cheeses but nothing like in America. I'm dying for some Sharp Cheddar but none of the cheeses here are yellow. We got a dill cheese and another type of cheese that was medium in flavor and kind of tasted like parmigiana. Each booth allowed samples and we tried about 3 flavors.
Inside the festival tent there was a pretty cool waterfall and river flowing around a display of cheese that we all stopped to take pictures in front of. Outside the festival area there was the typical plaza fountain and a tall clock tower.
There were other vendors too which sold Wine, Honey, and Vegetables. The wine tasting was .80 euro per glass (about a dollar US money) but I don't like wine so I didn't partake. I told Jonathan to try some but being a Wisconsin boy in cheese country, I don't think he was interested in wine. I was looking for cucumbers since the painters killed my cucumber plants last week but the vegetable vendor didn't sell them and they were pretty busy so I didn't try to buy any thing else.
Jonathan bought some Grappa. Grappa is an alcohol made in Italy that looks like apple juice & is derived from the distillation of pomace after racking or from virgin pomace after separation from the fermented grape. Grappa has an alcohol content between 37.5% and 60%. It that goes down hard and will give you a beyond death hangover if you get drunk off it. I wouldn't know since I've never tried it but this is the word we are hearing on the streets. Jonathan is saving it for when my dad visits in October!
We left the festival after about 2 hours and headed down the mountain home. I will be visiting Asiago again soon to go to the WWI Monument and hit the 99 CENT STORE!
I seriously can't believe you didn't tell me there was a 99 cent store! Thanks for inviting us too. It was a lot of fun. PS: I don't like wine right now either.
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