Girls trip to Nove, Italy

I really wanted to go to Nove, Italy and buy some Italian pottery.  So I set up a girls trip.

  I knew Rob would never want to stop there and let me shop for a day.  I was a little nervous, however, because I am not a natural girls trip kind of person, especially a shopping girls trip.  I hate shopping!  People who spend hours debating over things and wandering around and around the same shop annoy me.  I get a headache even thinking about it.  I do like new and nice things though and that involves shopping.  Amazon is my favorite- I type in what I want, lots of options come up.  I find the one I want and BAM! done.  No leaving my house, getting out of pj's or searching high and low and not finding what I want.  It's so very nice!  But some things, like pottery, just need a girls shopping trip.

Rabbit, anyone?

  We left on a Thursday and stopped in Bassona Del Grappa first at Elios.  Thankfully more than just I had done some homework and found good shopping places, because this one that I didn't know about and it was awesome!

They did have some funny things- like this sculpture/candle holder

and these crazy bathrooms

But they also had some really pretty pottery.  I got some lace pattern plates and bowls here and some jars that they make for Anthropology for a third of the price that Anthropology sells them.

Afterwards we made it to one more store- La Ceramica VBC where I bought stuff made for Lenox and Tiffany and Company all for cheap, before checking in at the hotel

 and trying to make it to a dinner spot.  We ended up going to the wrong place, but it was still a wonderful little pizza restaurant.  The pizza guys made our pizzas right there out in the open and even posed with us. 

The next day we went to lots of shops in the morning and then Bassano del Grappa to walk around and have lunch.  Bassano Del Grappa has a very old covered bridge.  It has burned down multiple times, but is always rebuilt to the same specifications.  It is really pretty.

We found a distillery that had this outside.  I had come with the idea that I really wanted to find a demi john and here was one.  I guess they figured out that tourist want demi johns because they secured it pretty well.  We decided instead to go dumpster diving and our friends took pictures of us doing just that!

We also stopped for gelato, because what is a trip to Italy without some gelato?

We also went to a purse factory.  They sold their purses for about 1/2 what you paid for them in the stores.  They were real Italian leather, but I didn't find anything I really liked, so I didn't get one.  Everyone else got at least one.  They would fix them right then and there if you wanted the straps longer or shorter or to make them removable. 

We visited another pottery shop that I didn't really want to go to and found that it actually had some great pieces.  They also took us on a tour of the facility which was great fun.  

They also made us all custom ordered stuff for the very next day!  We all bought a traditional chicken pitcher and a Christmas bell to hang on our tree. Almost everyone had something different printed on their bell and chicken pitcher and they did it all for us in one day.  Really glad the other ladies wanted to go to this one.  It looked like a regular house.  If I had been alone, I wouldn't have even tried to go in, but one of the ladies jump out and rang the bell and talked to the people and they came out, opened the gate and led us through the house to the back where the factory was.  Really amazing!

That night was tile painting night at our awesome hotel.  They even had some resident artist that came and painted with us lowly folk.  I don't think I will be invited to paint pottery anytime soon!

Saturday a group of us left to go home.  This was the most frustrating day for me, because we had to go back to half of the stores for people to pick out things they had been debating about.  I had gotten a bad cold and was miserable.  I had also bought everything I wanted by this point, so I just sat in the middle of the store and pouted, because I really wasn't feeling well and I really wanted to find my demi john still.  In the end we went back to the purse shop which was close to a demi john place.  When we got there, the shop was closed, but the other group got ahold of the proprietor who said he would open up at 2 pm.  This was way too late for our group, but the other group agreed to wait and get one for me and a couple other people.  So I got my demi john in the end, 

thanks to the group that stayed an extra night.  Our trip back was rather scary in some spots.  It was the beginning of March over the Italian Alps.  We hit two snow storms and so a 7 hour trip became a 9 hour trip home.

All in all a great trip and I got some fun stuff!