Day 44: Ferrara to Ostiglia

September 3, 2015

We ate our last oatmeal this morning. Italy seems to have never heard of the stuff. Dodie says that before I celebrate too much, I should bear in mind that here is little else available here in the morning. That could be right, because for instance given the heat we can not store meat or cheese, and the bakeries have nothing remotely like a quark tasche. We'll see. We have no reports of any tourists starving in Italy.

Here I am with the last of the oatmeal. I am happy about it now, but some analysts say I will be begging for oeatmeal soon enough.

We took a direct route to the next town, Bodeno, rather than returning to the Destra Po which would end up there anyway. It was great to see that not only was it a dedicated bike path, but it was well signed and shady as well. Travelling here along the Po we are benefiting from being on not only designated provincial routes, but also on ones that are part of the Eurovelo system. That is why we get to see signs saying that it is only xxxx km to Cadiz. Also, our target for today, Ostiglia, is the famous (to us) southern terminal of the Via Claudia Augusta. When we reach Ostiglia, we will be only about 50 km south of Verona, which of course is where we jumped ship and took the train to Venice, seemingly so long ago.

Instead of taking the red line (Po Radweg) to Bondeno, we hopped on the green line - the "Burana Cycleway"

The shady path that started our day's journey

The route to Bondeno was not only shady, but it also lacked any Lycra warriors. What it had instead was grannies. Really, there was a steady stream of just miscellaneous grannies on bikes, using the path. By grannies, or course, we mean very sedate old ladies pedalling gently, maybe going to shopping or to see the grand kids. These are not to be confused with "Grampies" who are tough cyclists on a mission!

This is a real granny on a bike. For some reason most oncoming cyclists this morning were grannies

Just how tough those Grampies aren't was illustrated when we came upon a grandpa out with two grandkids on the path. The youngest kid was about three, already riding a two wheeler without training wheels! Dodie figured she could take this kid, and went into passing mode - see first photo. But hey, the kid took the inside track, and watch out! - see second photo.

But the little rider uses the inside lane to good advantage.

After the excitement of the Bondeno run (with grannies and little racing kids) we returned to the river at Stellata. Here Dodie took on another challenge - mailing home the now heavy bundle of brochures and maps we had compulsively collected. We found the post office by stumbling upon it, and Dodie went in to bravely try out her non existent Italian. She learned that she would have to go to the tobacco shop to buy a box or envelope for the stuff. No German/French/US flat rate boxes here! So following the indistinct directions of the post office lady, off Dodie went to find an envelope. Fortunately, in the shop there was a stack of the right envelopes in plain sight. 50 cents later, Dodie was triumphantly back at the post office.

Dodie triumphanly returns with the mailback envelope in Stellata.

So that was two kg off our load. Only thing, we have already picked up a big Bikeline like map book for this region. Like Bikeline, it's in German - because of the Claudia Augusta no doubt. Anyway, it weighs a ton, and we will probably hang on to it - until the next mail back adventure.

Tumble down buildings like this one are all along the way.

We stopped for lunch at Felonica, at a bench that turned out to be in front of city hall. There I noticed they had a WWII war museum, and sauntered over for a look at it. We do not know much about the WWII history here, but assume that that PO was important, as a major north south dividing line in northern Italy. The museum was closed, like absolutely everything else in Italy during the heat of the day, but they did have a burned up USAF plane engine on display. I coudl not make out if this was a "Hey, look what we shot down" display, or a "Uh, uh, American liberators plane shot down" display. There was also one photo visible outside, that showed, as expected, there was a lot of fighting here in 1945.

The WWII fighter plane engine on display

We set off, only partly rested, for Ostiglia, and really began to feel the effect of a head wind and of the unchanging scenery. We did, however, see one more leaning tower - of which, as we say, there seem to be many:

What our route looked like for most of the day.

One break that should have been interesting was the church of Santa Maria Assunta. To read the blurb on the front, this was really something. Here, have a look:

On the other hand, the actual church was super plain. "Butt ugly" was Dodie's actual assessment.

Maybe despeerate for stimulation, we also noted Bimboland, in Sermide. This is not what you might think, since bimbo, we think, is baby, while bambino is a toddler.

What our way looked at for the rest of the day!

Borgofranco was a quaint place, though, and we were pleased there that we were approaching Revere and then Ostiglia.

Revere, a bit from the backside, but all these villages are quite crumbly.

More than once this day we ran in to a direction arrow set absolutely dead centre in a Y split in the road. Just what was the person who placed such a sign thinking? Have a look at this one:

Zoom in for a look at the helpful bike route sign!

Finally we did cross the PO, at Ostiglia, and headed for a visible church spire, thinking to find the centre of town, and hence a place to stay.

We crossed the Po to Ostiglia - terminus of the Via Claudia Augusta

In the family style restaurant at our hotel

Everyone in the restaurant looks like an old time local customer

Through this, our waitress(es) made us feel like part of the family. It was a really authentic and satisfying experience.

Meanwhile, we have had a closer look at the German language cycling guidebook for this region. It does our little hearts good to see all the little towns we have been passing through or by named, described, pictured. If the respected (by us) German cycling community is into this place, who are we to be crabby about it?

The German guidebook to cycling this region

Tomorrow we will head out with a fresh perspective. Our waitress already warned us that we will be starting with only croissant and coffee, but I think there is a good chance it will at least be a fresh croissant, so, good!

Bonus

This just in from Peter Scott, in the Guestbook:

"Hi, we're just back from a months cycling in the North of Italy, and had a month last year in central Italy. The Hot Chocolate pudding is I'm afraid the usual serving. As a devoted Hot Chocolate drinker, I don't drink coffee or tea, I've had maybe 30 Italian Hot Chocolates. I now usually consume them off the spoon. The only time you'll see what you and I recognise as a Hot Chocolate is when it comes out of a machine. I get excited when I see a machine :) Happy travels, Peter"

Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 2,106 km (1,308 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0