To Lido (Venice), Italy

July 7, 2025

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Today is one of those days that was so action packed that the morning seems a long time ago. I woke early to the sound of rain. Typically this would put me in a panic, but all of my weather apps (you do use more than one?) agreed that the rain would move out before our typical 9 AM departure.

Our breakfast buffet included all of the usual components. They had scrambled eggs that were served cold. What did I do to deserve this punishment? I ate them anyway. Protein. Croissants were the super small size. I passed. Look at me turn into a croissant connoisseur. As if I've eaten more than a few croissants in my entire life. That isn't something typically served in small town western Colorado.

The temperatures have cooled off with the rains that have been moving through. That is a huge bonus for me. A negative is the humidity, but today it felt even slightly chilly to start.

We had 40 miles to the first ferry. It was good riding. The roads were still of better quality. We continued to ride mostly in the country. I'm not sure why, but this area of Italy has many interesting buildings that aren't churches. We appreciate looking around. Sculptures are all the thing for yard and roof decoration.

We kept moving right along. We had some conflict on which route to take. RWGPS and Komoot had quite different routes. RWGPS took several paved canal paths, which sounded like fun riding. We also went with RWGPS for the approach to Chioggia. Komoot took the long bridge SS309. Using the Google guy, it didn't appear to me to have a separate bike lane. The RWGPS approach was shorter, and the heat map showed more cyclists going that direction.

We were on one of the narrow canal bridges when a couple appeared at the other end. They had to wait for us to exit. It was definitely a one bicycle wide bridge.

For some reason, I had in my mind the water approach to Venice would be qt and calm. Chioggia was anything but. There were cyclists everywhere! On E bikes - which seems odd, as it is extremely flat here. Why do they need E bikes? Jacinto said it wasn't the car traffic or the roads that were confusing - it was navigating with all of the bicycles. That's a new one for us.

We finally made it through Chioggia to the ferry area. It appeared we needed to take a right, over an arching bridge that has steps. That looks no fun with a loaded bicycle. I suggested we look around a little before packing the bikes up and over. That paid off - the ferry entrance and ticketing was to our left.

There was a helpful male employee outside who didn't speak English, but got through to us what we needed to do with large hand gestures. He also had us park our bikes under cover, at the head of the line to board the ferry. We went to buy the tickets. The ticket agent was most unfriendly, but had good English. I asked if we could buy a ticket also for the next ferry. She said no, we got it at the next station. That seemed reasonable. She said it was one hour until the next ferry, but I had read service was every 30 minutes. We asked the friendly guy, who took us over to the printed schedule. It was lunch time for the employees. One hour until the next ferry. We decided to have lunch also, at the cafe right in front of the ferry. Of course, service was slow. I ended up asking for our food to go, and could we have the check. She brought our food on plates, but no to go containers. We waited 3-4 minutes, and then we really needed to leave. I ended up going inside to pay. They had two to go bags with boxes inside, ready for us. I paid in a hurry and left. It was 50 E for a caesar salad and a hamburger. One beer and one water. After we were on the ferry and going, then I looked at the receipt in detail. There was 3.50E each charge for the to go containers. Ouch.

There was another cyclist on the ferry. We ended up chatting and he asked if we wanted to ride together to Lido. That worked in our favor as he also spoke Italian. When we got to the next ferry, there was a sign that the ferry was closed for a week. Panic! No one mentioned that. Further reading said that a smaller ferry was available for bicycles and walkers. Our new friend had asked the grouchy lady for a two day pass. He had done his research. 25 E. We had paid 22 E for two people and two bicycles for the first ferry. Then only 3 E total for the second ferry. Probably in the end the two day pass would have been good for us also.

The weather had been sunny to start - which I was happy about because that meant it wasn't going to rain. I saw a few clouds gathering up. That's good - cloud cover. That's bad - rain. Jacinto laughed at me. I had to laugh at myself.

Overall, I'm very happy we weren't here last week when it was so hot. Jeff Bezos got married one week too early. Of course, I'm sure their venue was air conditioned.

Our second ferry was perhaps five minutes. Jacinto and Jofre rode in front, chatting. There wasn't any traffic, so they could ride side by side. All of the island riding we did was calm and enjoyable. I imagine the direct route into Venice would be far busier.

We arrived at the Hotel Russo. Jofre was camping. He was excited to go to a paid campground. He had wild camped the past five days. Jofre's power bank and phone were out of power, and he was ready for a shower after five days!

Our bikes went in a locked open courtyard. I wasn't so excited about that as it was supposed to rain again overnight. Jacinto said our bikes would get wet and then get dry again. Hurumph.

We walked downtown to an open food bus that sold paninis, hotdogs, and hamburgers. We shared an odd order of nachos with guacamole for 8 E. That was a fail. No surprises. We shouldn't bring our TexMex expectations to Italy. The hamburger was excellent, with generous condiments and additions. We saw a number of people in wet swimming suits stopping by for food.

Our room wasn't quite as large/nice as I expected for the money. We did like the balcony. We sat outside at sunset and watched the lightning over the water. Jacinto said that was worth the money right there. $460. for two nights.

He wants to see everything tomorrow. It's odd how excited he is about Venice. Jacinto went on and on about how when he was a boy in school and read about these foreign countries, he never in his wildest dreams thought he would visit those places, and here he was. In Venice! He's not usually this animated. I'm going to have to muster the energy . . . it's good - really it is.

The rain is supposed to quit by 9 AM. We are sleeping in to 8 AM.

Last night’s limoncello. Jacinto said she poured it out of a bottle, which he thought meant it wasn’t homemade. Maybe homemade would taste better?

We took a wrong turn and got this photo of a cemetery gate as a reward.

This was by far today’s most interesting house. The sun was totally wrong for good photos.

Of course there were dragons. Wait, it's a snake. That's not typical.

Sculptures are common in this area. But these were atypically metal.

This is some sort of road marker in Italy. Can anyone tell me how the number system works?

Now we have sculptures on top of the buildings.

Here there’s a sculpture on top, one in front, and also a tower!

This villa had many sculptures. I’m not sure what the definition is for a villa.

On one of the paths, our elevation was below zero!

Jacinto was not impressed with the bread sticks.

We had a house once with a hexagon shaped living area. It was difficult to place the furniture.

I think Jacinto was happy to have someone else to chat with. Bonus because they spoke Spanish.

A view from the bike path heading into Lido.

Our new friend started in Barcelona also. His hard goal is Istanbul, but if he’s in the mood he might keep riding. He has seven more weeks available.

Our bedroom at the Hotel Russo is smaller than I had hoped. We do have a balcony that looks over the water.

It look like they were replacing the ferry deck pylons.

More sailboats. We don’t see many of those in Colorado.

The load on top of this car is almost twice the length.

A canal with boats, but we aren’t in Venice yet.

We had dinner at a food truck. It was a hopping place.

Here’s the driver. People could sit on the second decker to eat.

Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 1,145 miles (1,843 km)

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