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Situated on the River Brenta where it widens on its emergence from the hills, BASSANO has expanded rapidly this century, though its historic centre remains largely unspoiled by twentieth-century mistakes. It's better known for its manufacturers and produce, and for the events of the two world wars , than for any outstanding architecture or monuments, but the airy situation on the edge of the mountains, and the quiet charm of the old streets make it well worth the trip. For centuries a major producer of ceramics and wrought iron, Bassano is also renowned for its grappa distilleries and culinary delicacies such as porcini (dried mushrooms), white asparagus and honey.

Almost all of Bassano's sights lie between the Brenta and the train station; go much further in either direction and you'll quickly come to recently developed suburbs. Walking away from the station, you cross the orbital Viale delle Fosse to get to Piazza Garibaldi , one of the two main squares. Here, the cloister of the fourteenth-century church of San Francesco now houses the Museo Civico (Tues-Sat 9am-6.30pm, Sun 3.30-6.30pm; L8000/4.13, ticket includes the Palazzo Sturm - , www.x-land.it/museobassano ). Downstairs the rooms are devoted to Roman and other archeological finds. Upstairs is a collection including paintings by the da Ponte family (better known as the Bassano family). Jacopo Bassano is the most famous, though his works can be sentimental and derivative; his son Francesco is better represented by some brooding portraits. Don't miss the tucked-away medieval rooms, which conceal a couple of typically luminous Bartolomeo Vivarini works, and a compelling Crucifixion by the fourteenth-century Padovan artist Guariento. Other rooms are devoted to a number of plaster works by Canova, two thousand of whose drawings are owned by the museum, and to the great baritone Tito Gobbi, who was born ion Bassano.

Overlooking the other side of the piazza is the Torre Civica , once a lookout tower for the twelfth-century inner walls, now a clock tower with spurious nineteenth-century battlements and windows. Beyond Piazza Libertà with its fifteenth-century Loggia (once home of the Venetian military commander), Piazzetta Montevecchio leads to a little jumble of streets and stairways running down to the river and the Ponte degli Alpini . The river was first bridged at this point in the late twelfth century, and replacements or repairs have been needed at regular intervals ever since, mostly because of flooding; the present structure was designed by Palladio in 1568, and built of wood in order to make the bridge as flexible as possible. Nardini, a grappa distillery founded in 1779 (Tues-Sun 8am-8pm), stands at this end of the bridge; these days the distilling process takes place elsewhere, but there's still the original shop and bar where you can sample before you select your bottle.

From here, if you follow Via Ferracina downstream for a couple of minutes you'll come to the eighteenth-century Palazzo Sturm (June-Sept Tues-Sat 9am-12.30pm, Sun 10am-12.30pm & 3.30-6.30pm; April, May & Oct Tues-Sat 9am-12.30pm, Sun 3.30-6.30pm; Nov-March Fri 9am-12.30pm, Sat & Sun 3.30-6.30pm; same ticket as Museo Civico) , a showcase for the town's famed majolica ware.

Various streets and squares in Bassano commemorate the dead of the two world wars. The major war memorial , however, is out of town on Monte Grappa . A vast, circular, tiered edifice with a "Via Eroica" leading to a war museum, it holds 12,000 Italian and Austro-Hungarian dead; less a symbol of mourning and repentance than a declaration of future collaboration, it was built by the Fascists in 1935. Buses go up there from Bassano during the summer months.