April 14, 2025
Day 4 - Sirmione to Quistello
Still Quirky
Back in 2019 on our Copenhagen to Lecce tour K and I stayed in Quistello, and here we are, back again.
Why?
For the same reason as last time, it’s about half way to where we want to go (this time Bologna) and about the max distance we want to ride in a day.
Similar to yesterday, the cycling infrastructure we were on was first rate. We were mostly on the EV7 route - The Sun Route, in that it leads to the sunny south. However, the sun was nowhere to be seen today. Thankfully, not much rain was seen either in spite of the forecast calling for heavy rain in the Sirmione area in the morning. We’ll chalk this one up as a win.
This will be the only section of this tour that will be a ‘redo’ for K and me (Day 2 was probably a more than 50% redo of our 1991 tour but without a journal there’s no way our memories are good enough to tell. Today however was definitely well over 80% redo, as there’s pics & maps to reference. One positive note though is that there has been significant upgrades to the dedicated cycling path from Sirmione to Mantova. It was pretty good in 2019, now it is excellent!
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Classic Po valley cycling, if you’re Canadian it’s flat enough to be reminiscent of Manitoba (and maybe that’s why the spelling autocorrect on my iPad keeps changing Mantova to Manitoba!!) I don’t think AI has come that far yet and about the only thing the Po shares with Manitoba is topography, flooding and probably some wheat and barley. You’ll never see a lemon or persimmon growing anywhere near the ‘Peg!
OK, off that off ramp now … another good day of biking, most of it on dedicated bike paths with excellent riding surfaces allowing for stress free pedaling. It’s the type of pedalling where you don’t even realize you’re pedalling as you’re chatting to your riding companion or checking out what’s floating or swimming in the river …. you know, that kind of relaxing stuff.
What we had today and yesterday was what we had in mind as ‘warm up rides’ for the start of the tour. We’ll have a few more like this as we travel down the Po and hopefully our legs are warmed up for when we hit the Croatian coast. From there to the end there’s not a flat spot in site.
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14 hours ago
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That pretty much covers the cycling portion of the day. It was enjoyable but pretty pedestrian. The real colour on the day came in Quistillo.
On the surface this is a really plain and boring town … it could be the poster child ‘pedestrian’.
Andrea grew up in this area and when he found out we were planning on staying here looked at us in stunned amazement and said “But why? It’s in the middle of no where!”
As I mentioned earlier we’re here because this is about how far we wanted to cycle, just like our situation in 2019.
Back then we stayed at a very eclectic, but very nice, B&B - Villa Camila. There were only a handful of restaurants in town and one of them was a Michelin starred establishment (for many decades) run by Romano Termani. As we were wandering around town looking for a place to eat, we were hailed by Romano and more or less invited in to eat there. The whole dinner experience was very eclectic but also very good (do check out the link to 2019). The whole experience is one we won’t forget.
Fast forward to today. We’re staying at another Agriturismo - Zibramonda - a few km’s south of Quistello.
It’s often been said that two ends of a spectrum, for example insanity vs genius, aren’t really that for apart if viewed a a circular continuum rather than a line.
That’s how I’m thinking about this place.
Oh lord, where do I start.
How about this.
This dude was greeting us as we entered the establishment. It only got better.
Our room for the night - this is off their Booking.com profile. We booked directly and missed this.
Surprisingly, the bathroom was quite large, very modern and very well appointed. For example, the walk in shower had a multi mode Grohe fixture with a ‘rain shower’, a hand held wand and a four nozzle ‘horizontal’ mode where the four nozzles were vertically aligned to strategically wash different body parts. I’ll stop there else I will drift of into TMI land.
A few more ‘design features’
The place was run by a couple about our age, maybe a bit older. This is the front desk. I guess they recharge during the day under the pyramid.
We’re not done yet
And then we entered the dining hall for dinner!
We weren’t the only folks here, that would have been more awkward, but it was still a bit surreal.
There was a set price menu and you could choose your antipasto, primi and secondi from a typed out list ( typed by a circa 1952 Olivetti typewriter, I think I recognize that distinctive font).
The ‘woman of the house’ came by to take our orders. In rapid fire Italian, oblivious to the fact we didn’t have a clue what she was saying and showing absolutely no interest in any translation aid, she laid out what was on offer.
We started simple. Two beers please. We sort of figured out the response, which is that they only had one type of beer, but that was OK. We’d have two of whatever they had.
A moment of silence.
She replied again. They.Only.Have.ONE.beer.
Oh. Ok, I’ll guess we’ll have that one, but can we have two glasses please
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K didn’t like it much but to me it was just a different hoppy taste, and pretty good!
14 hours ago
This was the beer. Not bad, and we noticed there were a number of items that featured Cannabis on the menu. A quick search revealed that it’s been decriminalized in Italy for personal consumption, but it’s not legal. In particular it’s not legal for sale.
After consuming the bottle, we’re pretty sure it was just flavoured … think exotic hops. It was actually pretty tasty.
The food orders were pretty straightforward and then came the wine.
The list had: Blanco, Gran Blanco, Rosato, Rosso and Gran Rosso. I vaguely think I heard her say the the Gran Blanco was a Prosecco. Anyway we proceeded to order a “Gran Rosso’. Perfect, she’ll bring it right over.
A minute or so later when arrives with a chilled bottle of fizzy Lambrusco. We probably should have given it a try but my knowledge of this wine is severely tainted from the years we lived in the UK. This was the UK teenager equivalent of Baby Duck and my mind was stuck there.
We asked if we could get a plain bottle of Rosso, forget the gran stuff.
Another moment of silence, Then some muttering ,stroking of the chin and shaking of the head. A long string of incomprehensible Italian (our fault, not hers) came forth that we construed as her having no Rosso.
She the strode off and came back a minute later with a bottle of Bardolino.
Ice Cold Bardolino .
Wonderful, that will do! We’ve got lots of time and our hands, and warm hands.
The dinner was pretty good. Very basic food but well prepared. The Bardolino was nice and we were thoroughly entertained.
I hope this doesn't come off as condescending as there was nothing to really complain about and it’s a big world out there full of lots of different people with different tastes and customs. We just experienced a part of that world that was different from our norm, and it was all good.
Quirky is good, in moderation. And Quistello delivered again!
SOTD
Thanks to Mike Lake for this suggestion. It really fits the day.
Take Me To The River - Talking Heads cover of the Al Green Classic. Yeah we were headed to the Po, the breadbasket of Italy. The song was a Reverend Al Green original, a nod to the (quirky) religious ornamentation of the B&B, and David Byrne is pretty quirky! A live version from Rome no less.
Good night from quirky Quistello!
Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 371 km (230 miles)
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11 hours ago