October 9, 2018
To Cremona
Our B and B in Brescello is nice enough, but the WiFi is pretty awful. I manage to upload photos for yesterday’s journal entry, but it’s very slow going. With no real reason to hang around this morning, we get an early start and continue upriver along the Po to tonight’s destination, Cremona.
Our ride gets off to a slow start though, because we don’t have a GPS map base that covers the first few miles of the day. In planning this tour, we didn’t envision veering this far south in our transition from the Dolomites to the Lake District, and as a result didn’t include the quadrant that includes Brescello. We’re so close though - the map ends just on the other side of the river, and we only have about two miles of today’s ride uncovered.
Rachael offered last night to try to download the missing quadrant, but I talk her out of it. We’re only missing two miles, and there are very few roads to contend with before we’re back in terra cognita.
Two miles out of town, we find ourselves just a few hundred yards from our map. Unfortunately, we’re on a rough dirt path atop a dike, with a streambed to the north and no evidence that our path leads anywhere good. Fortunately, we can bring the map up on the cellphone, and see that we’re at a dead end. After Rachael reminds me of how much smarter it would be to download more map than we think we need, we backtrack and pick another road.
Finally, about an hour after leaving town and advancing a net of about two miles toward our day’s goal, we’re back on map and on route.
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-Luca Brasi, The Godfather
6 years ago
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For the next eight miles, we continue west on the right bank of the Po. It’s just like the last three days have been - exceeding flat. We are going to be in a world of hurt when we come to a real hill again. Like yesterday, most of the ride is along levee tops, and a balance mix of paved, traffic free lanes, loose gravel, and dirt. Just the same old same old that we’re getting used to.
Until we come to Colorno, a small town we’d never heard of and I hadn’t even known was on our route. Colorno, as it turns out, is an important site - the location of an imperial palace, referred to as the Versailles of Parma. It’s expansive, impressive, and even more interesting because there are young chefs scurrying everywhere. The palace is now the home of ALMA, the famed international Italian Cuisine school. As usual, the Wikipedia article gives a better description of he palace and its history than I would.
This is one of the greatest things about travel, in my opinion: stumbling upon something like this that is a complete surprise. We didn’t arrive with any preconceptions or expectations of seeing something noteworthy. We’re just surprised, and delighted.
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The rest of the ride to Cremona is a continuation of what came before - another thirty miles along the right bank of the Po, climbing ever so imperceptibly. It is a very pleasant ride, and well mapped out for us - we’re on the Parma Po Cycleway, and its excellent signage keeps us out of trouble.
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6 years ago
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6 years ago
6 years ago
We arrived in Cremona a bit after four. Not much time left in the day to see the town, so we’ll do that tomorrow morning. What we saw though looks wonderful. The historical core is really beautiful, and surprisingly quiet - there really aren’t many tourists in evidence. Just people going about their daily lives in the shadow of greatness. The town is surprisingly cycle friendly too - a well developed network of bike paths make it easy to get in and out of the city, and the drivers are quite courteous and patient. This is the best country!
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Love all the descriptions of cycle-friendliness, too. A tad different than Denver Metro!
6 years ago
Denver now!
6 years ago
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https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/rideagain/day-49-cremona-amati-guernari-and-stradivari/#7025_2440307_DSCN4351_by_stradivaris_grave_zed20150908_185010_30p
p.s. We are hoping Jeff will soon provide for ULs like this to just be given as links, like in the main text.
6 years ago
Can you believe it? We didn’t go to the museum. One more reason to come back here. We’re thinking of just repatriating to northern Italy.
6 years ago
Ride stats today: 46 miles, 600’
Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 1,416 miles (2,279 km)
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6 years ago