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Suggest a Feature →Vicenza & the Veneto Region, Italy
The 173rd Airborne Brigade in the heart of the Italian Veneto. Venice is 45 minutes away.
USAG Italy encompasses Caserma Ederle in Vicenza — home of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team and U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF). It's a small post in the middle of a mid-sized Italian city, without the sprawling American infrastructure of Germany. Daily life is more immersed in Italian culture by necessity.
Vicenza is a UNESCO World Heritage City — Andrea Palladio's 16th-century architecture fundamentally influenced every neoclassical building ever built, including the U.S. Capitol. The city is elegant, the food is extraordinary, and the geographic position in the northeastern Veneto puts Venice, Verona, the Dolomite Mountains, and the Croatian Adriatic coast all within 2-3 hours.
Must Eat
The spots worth eating at before you PCS out.
Antico Caffè Garibaldi (Vicenza)
"The piazza café experience that defines Italian daily life."
Vicenza's Piazza dei Signori is ringed with caffès and restaurants under the shadow of Palladio's Basilica. Antico Caffè Garibaldi anchors the square for morning espresso, aperitivo hour, and late afternoon spritz. This is Italian café culture in its purest expression.
Standing at the bar is the Italian way and costs less than table service. The aperitivo hour (6-8pm) includes free cicchetti (small bites) with your drink order. Spritz Aperol is the Veneto regional aperitivo.
Trattoria Zamboni (Vicenza)
"Regional Veneto cooking. Baccalà, risotto, and cicchetti."
Northern Italian food is fundamentally different from the Italian-American food most Americans know — risotto instead of pasta, polenta, baccalà (salt cod), and the cicchetti bar culture. Vicenza's traditional trattorie serve these regional specialties with local Soave and Valpolicella wines.
Baccalà alla Vicentina (salt cod with onions and milk, served on polenta) is the signature Vicenza dish. Try it at least once at a traditional trattoria.
Venice Bacaro Crawl (Cannaregio / Dorsoduro)
"Cicchetti and Ombra in the Venice neighborhoods locals actually use."
Venetian bacari (wine bars) serve cicchetti — small plates of cured meat, seafood, marinated vegetables, and bread — with small glasses of wine (ombra). In the Cannaregio and Dorsoduro neighborhoods, away from the Rialto tourist strip, bacari charge local prices and serve Venice's actual food culture.
Do a bacaro crawl: stand at 4-5 different wine bars for an ombra and cicchetti at each. The total cost is around €20 per person. This is how Venetians eat dinner in the evening.
Outdoor
Get outside. The land around military installations is usually the best reason to be there.
Venetian Cycling (Pista Ciclabile del Brenta)
"Flat Veneto river cycling through Palladian villas."
The Brenta Riviera cycle path follows the Brenta River from Padua toward Venice through a landscape of Palladian villas that were once the summer retreats of Venetian nobility. Entirely flat, easily rentable bikes, and ending with the Venetian Lagoon.
Rent bikes in Padua or at Stra along the Brenta. The full Brenta Riviera is 38 km. Villa Pisani (one of Casanova's escapes) is open to visitors along the route.
Culture & History
Places with stories. Most military towns sit on deep history — dig in.
Venice (45 Minutes)
"The most extraordinary city in the world is 45 minutes from your post."
Venice is 45 minutes from Vicenza by train — a car-free city of 118 islands, 400 bridges, and canals replacing streets. The Piazza San Marco, Doge's Palace, Rialto Bridge, Accademia museum, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection are all walkable. The city is extraordinary in every season.
Arrive by train (cheaper and faster than driving). Visit in November-March for lower costs and fewer tourists. Acqua alta (flooding) happens in winter — bring rubber boots. Venice in fog is more beautiful than Venice in sunshine.
Family
Stuff to do with the kids. Rated by people who have brought actual children.
Gardaland (Lake Garda)
"Italy's most popular theme park on the shores of Lake Garda."
Gardaland theme park on Lake Garda is 45 minutes from Vicenza — Italy's equivalent of a major European theme park with coasters, family rides, and the full park experience. Lake Garda itself is one of Italy's most beautiful lakes.
Military discount available through USO/ITR. Book tickets online. Combine with a Lake Garda boat trip for a full family day.
Day Trips
When you need to remember there's a world outside the gate.
"Romeo and Juliet's city. Roman Arena. Excellent food and wine."
Verona is 35 minutes west — Shakespeare's setting for Romeo and Juliet, a perfectly preserved Roman Arena that hosts summer opera performances, excellent restaurants, and the gateway to Valpolicella wine country.
"Pula's Roman amphitheater and Rovinj's Venetian harbor. 2 hours."
The Istrian peninsula of Croatia (2 hours southeast) has a Roman amphitheater in Pula larger than the Colosseum, the stunning hilltown of Rovinj with Venetian architecture, and the truffle-rich interior. Affordable and spectacular.
"The Uffizi, Michelangelo's David, and the Duomo. 2 hours."
Florence is 2 hours south by car or train — the Uffizi Gallery (book months in advance for the David), the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, and Tuscan food culture. Go at least once during your assignment.
Learn Italian — even 100 phrases transforms daily life in Vicenza. Google Translate camera mode handles menus and signs. Italian people are warm and patient with effort.
The aperitivo culture (6-8pm, Campari or Aperol Spritz with free food) is the social infrastructure of northern Italian life. Participate in it — it's affordable and the best way to meet local Italians.
Venice is 45 minutes away and gets cheaper in winter. Visit multiple times, not just once. The quiet November Venice is completely different from the summer tourist version.
The military ITR at USAG Italy runs organized trips throughout Italy and Europe. The Rome weekend trip and the Sicily trip are both worth doing early in the assignment.
Budget for travel. The geographic position of Vicenza — Venice, Verona, Dolomites, Florence, Croatia within 2 hours — is the point of this assignment. Anyone who doesn't travel will regret it.
USAG Italy is a small post with limited on-installation amenities. Italian bureaucracy (driving licenses, residency permits, banking) is genuinely frustrating and requires patience. Language barriers for daily tasks are real and more significant than in Germany. But soldiers who engage with Italy — the food, the language, the travel — consistently describe it as the most significant assignment of their career. The country is transformative if you let it be.
This guide is built by people who've been stationed here. If there's a spot we got wrong or a gem we missed, tell us.