I could feel the warmth of the sun at 7:30am when I wandered over to the shower block on Saturday morning; nice. We waved goodbye to the campsite manager, Mr Lupi Dino (great name) and headed back to the huge supermarket where I bought a basket for the front of my bike, plus lots of wine, food and milk. Then we set off north. The land in this section of Italy is completely and utterly flat and practically every field is under cultivation; corn, grapevines, fruit trees, cereal crops, vegetables, but still no cows…..? We zoomed around Finale Emilia following the signs for Ferrara. The road took us alongside the northern edge of the city walls and luckily for us the Campsite Communale Estense hadn’t shut for lunch, because we arrived at 1:02pm. After lunch outside in the sunshine and a bit of afternoon relaxation, we unhooked the bikes and cycled across the fields to the city walls. A large proportion of Ferrara, with both old and new buildings, is contained within the mediaeval walls and within it a lot of the streets are still cobbled.
The main form of transport, apart from on foot, seems to be on a bike, everyone seems to be on a bike and yet it’s really rather uncomfortable cycling on cobblestones. You can even cycle right through the ancient Castello Estense and out the other side. If your girlfriend doesn’t have a bike, it seems she can sit on the rack on the back of the bike, or, as in one example that we saw, she can sit on the handlebars facing backwards and kissing you while you keep up a good speed……! We were quite impressed with his concentration on both jobs in hand.
An antique market was spread out across the Piazza Trento Trieste and seemed a very popular spot for a shuffle around, so we joined in the shuffle and didn’t get back to Eileen until after 7pm; hence dinner was rather too late and neither of us slept well.
On Sunday morning we both woke up with sniffy noses and sore throats, so we stayed in bed a lot later than usual, then while I did some washing, Rodney cooked us up a big brunch; they do say ‘feed a cold’. After a slightly lazy morning, involving a lot of nose blowing, we cycled over to the city and at Porto degli Angeli pushed our bikes up the slope on to a pathway that runs along the top of the city walls.
You can cycle a fair bit of the 9kms of the 15thC and 16thC walls and there is also a cycleway below the walls of the north, east and south sides. Together with Lucca, they are the best preserved Renaissance city walls in Italy and they are impressive, though Lucca, which is far smaller, is a prettier town inside. So we did bits of cycling on the walls and some more down below and then turned in to the centre of the city for a much needed drink. We ordered two cakes and Rodney’s report on the cappuccino is “it was okay”. Unlike last time, I managed to make myself understood enough to get a brilliant, thick, hot chocolate and I liked the cafe because they also delivered for free (or included?) a plate of biscuits and a glass of water each, which enabled us to take some drugs which we had just managed to buy at the one and only pharmacy that was open.
We were slightly surprised at the number of people wandering around and then realised that it is yet another long weekend; not sure what this one is for, but it seems that, like France, Italy also has a lot of public holidays. Finally, after a bit more of a cycle on and off the walls, we headed back to Eileen for dinner. As we passed the fields and the roses in the campsite, we both felt like we were in England on one of those lovely mild summer days; it was something to do with the hazy light and the subtle heat, plus the lovely smell of the roses, I guess……
On Monday morning, with the mulberry trees above Eileen starting to drop too much fruit, which was starting to get a bit squishy underfoot, we set off north to Venice. As we left Ferrara we were both a bit distracted chasing mosquitos across the windscreen, that we missed the turning to the autostrada. It didn’t matter, we found our way through Pontelagoscuro and across the Po river and joined the motorway a little further north than intended. The other side of the Po valley is just as flat and is mainly agricultural. We saw people picking spaghetti in a field, but still no cows…… We passed the Euganean Hills and Monselice; it was nice to see some pointy bits at last. Then we skirted Padova and just 4kms from the campsite at Mestre the road closures had the GPS stumped. We went east, we went back west, we went north, we went east again, south a bit and then finally popped out on the road to Venezia Camping Village. That diversion made the distance a lot more than 4kms, but it didn’t matter, it wasn’t even midday yet, so we picked a good spot with some sunshine and a nice hedge full of white flowers and Rodney settled Eileen in for a few days. I gathered up all the sheets, towels, clothes and more, because it had all mounted up and with the sun (hopefully) shining until 9pm we could get the whole lot dry in the afternoon and keep tomorrow (Rodney’s birthday) completely free for roaming around Venice. Tuna steaks are on the home menu for dinner and I think we’ll both be wanting an early night to try and knock these sniffy colds out of our heads.
