{"id":1965,"date":"2013-06-03T17:17:52","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T16:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2026-05-25T06:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T05:39:16","slug":"no-ferrari-in-ferrara-just-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/06\/03\/no-ferrari-in-ferrara-just-bikes\/","title":{"rendered":"No Ferrari In Ferrara, Just Bikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 Then we set off north.\u00a0 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\u2026..?\u00a0 We zoomed around Finale Emilia following the signs for Ferrara.\u00a0 The road took us alongside the northern edge of the city walls and luckily for us the Campsite Communale Estense hadn\u2019t shut for lunch, because we arrived at 1:02pm.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Castello
Castello Estense, Ferrara<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u2019s really rather uncomfortable cycling on cobblestones.\u00a0 You can even cycle right through the ancient Castello Estense and out the other side.\u00a0 If your girlfriend doesn\u2019t 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\u2026\u2026!\u00a0 We were quite impressed with his concentration on both jobs in hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Piazza
Piazza Trento Trieste, Ferrara<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u2019t get back to Eileen until after 7pm; hence dinner was rather too late and neither of us slept well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Medieval
Medieval shops built along the side of the cathedral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 \u2018feed a cold\u2019.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney cycling outside the city walls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can cycle a fair bit of the 9kms of the 15thC<\/sup> and 16thC<\/sup> walls and there is also a cycleway below the walls of the north, east and south sides.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 \u00a0So 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.\u00a0 We ordered two cakes and Rodney\u2019s report on the cappuccino is \u201cit was okay\u201d. \u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"
Ferrara Cathedral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Finally, after a bit more of a cycle on and off the walls, we headed back to Eileen for dinner.\u00a0 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\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bicycles
Bicycles in Ferrara<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 As we left Ferrara we were both a bit distracted chasing mosquitos across the windscreen, that we missed the turning to the autostrada.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter, we found our way through Pontelagoscuro and across the Po river and joined the motorway a little further north than intended.\u00a0 The other side of the Po valley is just as flat and is mainly agricultural.\u00a0 We saw people picking spaghetti in a field, but still no cows\u2026\u2026 \u00a0We passed the Euganean Hills and Monselice; it was nice to see some pointy bits at last.\u00a0 Then we skirted Padova and just 4kms from the campsite at Mestre the road closures had the GPS stumped.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That diversion made the distance a lot more than 4kms, but it didn’t matter, it wasn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 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\u2019s birthday) completely free for roaming around Venice.\u00a0 Tuna steaks are on the home menu for dinner and I think we\u2019ll both be wanting an early night to try and knock these sniffy colds out of our heads.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The view from Eileen’s kitchen. And that bloke will be older tomorrow…….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8397,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions\/8397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}