Aviano

"Aviano is not a tourist area. It is little America. So most people coming here are military-affiliated in some way. There's not much to do here at all after you've been to the azienda agricolas (wineries) and drank yourself into a stuper. It is a great spot to be located out of if you are traveling through Italy. Hotels are cheaper priced here and you can get to anywhere from here. Austria and Slovenia are 1.5hrs away, Croatia is about 2 hrs driving, you can be in France in 4 hours by train, Switzerland is just on the other side of Milan, and Germany is just a hop, skip, and a jump. This is a great location if you want to be closer to other countries." 

Interesting comments found on the net. Much of what she says is true about the military and the bars but the very fact that it is not a tourist town actually pleases me. (Venice was a little too over-the-top for my tastes.) There are other sides to this part of Veneto she completely misses - there's the history, the architecture and the very gracious Italianos who live here. Of course there's the NATO airbase just down the road:

Canadian CF-18s - better than an alarm clock

But there's also the very quaint town center that has a rollicking market every Tuesday morning:

Piazza sans market day

Quite nearby the piazza is the Hotel Oliva. I am ensconced in a very nice room on the top floor with terrific views of the surrounding mountains:

Mauricio, our über-friendly concierge

Camera mio (my room)

Internet center (see me behind the books?)

The restaurant

There are even bike paths  throughout the area which I have only begun to discover. Italianos, while apparently super aggressive drivers absolutely love and respect cyclists and are quite content to wait patiently behind grandmothers puttering along the roadways:

To market, to market she goes...