Mestrino

by Renee · Published May 17, 2025 · Updated May 17, 2025

Mestrino is a comune in the Province of Padua in the Italian region Veneto. It is the home of Patrizia and Cincenzia, the two daughters of Tosca and Nicola from San Pier Patti, Messina, Sicily. Tosca’s grandmother is the youngest sister of my great grandfather Antonino Fiore. We have met Tosca and her humans Nicola twice in Sicily. We met one son Francesco, but have never met their daughters and son Massimo before now.

We met our cousin Patrizia and her husband Enrico who live in Mestrino, on Friday May 16

We did so well with our train to Mestrino. We bought our tickets online from Verona to Mestrino. This is the first time that we had one change. We walked to the station, found our platform, got on our 10:22 train and it took off about 10:30. We had three stops.

The first stop was another station in Verona. It was scheduled to leave at 10:26 and it left at 10:45. We were now 15 minutes late and we had eight minutes to get to our next train at our one stop. Sadly, we missed that train and had to wait two hours for the next train. Patrizia and her husband Enrico told us to sit tight and they came and picked us up. Patrizia would not take no for an answer.

She took us to her home and cooked us a delicious chicken and salad lunch. Then she drove us to our B&B so that we could check in. We were there for about an hour and she came back and got us and drove us to Villa Contarini in Piazzola sul Brenta.

“Villa Contarini – G. Foundation And. Ghirardi stands in Piazzola sul Brenta (PD) on the remains of an ancient castle built by the Dente family around the year one thousand. Acquired by the Carraresi, lords of Padua, it was inherited from a member of the Contarini family. Until the second half of the seventeenth century the Villa remained a rural residence: it was, in fact, Marco Contarini, Prosecutor of San Marco, who expanded the building making it similar to a Palace and making it an extraordinary theatrical place.”

The palace is surrounded by sculptures of every kind, some made from books, some made from glass. It holds many art exhibitions and this weekend there is a vintage car and fashion show with live music. We could not go inside bc of the festival prep but the outside grounds were stunning.

Next, Patrizia showed us around the Mestrino, we walked to the cathedral, Parrocchia di San Bartolomeo Apostolo, and then we walked back to her house for dinner that she made this morning. It was a delicious sausage and zucchini tart, a mushroom tart, both with a pasta folla crust. We had the typical Sbrisolona dessert that you break apart with your fist. It is part of the tradition in the Veneto region.

“Sbrisolona is a cake of Mantuan origin. The name Sbrisolona, comes from “brisa”, crumb, because of the grainy, hard texture of the cake, in fact it should be roughly kneaded and then dropped in large crumbs in the cake pan.”

I will be making this when I get home.

We are in wine country for sure. Amarone is from here along with the bubbly Fior D’Arancio Colli Euganei that we had with our lunch. After lunch Patrizia pulled out the spirits made by Cynzia husband Giuseppe: limoncello, canella (cinnamon) and a fennel one made by her dad Nicola. I have a feeling more to come when we meet the rest of the family this weekend.

Padua is the birth place of Aperol. Asiago cheese is made close by in the mountains.

I love our B&B. It’s so nice and old and comfy and homey and authentic. Anna is our host. I would stay here for a year or longer.

Saturday is to be packed with Vicenza and Padua.