To Padua

June 10, 2023

We have a longer than usual ride for the last stage of the tour (both of ours and the Gibson/Kertesz team’s), on a route none of us is actually that enthusiastic about, on a day where it looks more likely than not that we’ll get wet before it’s over. Who picked Padua as our final destination, anyway?

Hoping to get as much of our ride in dry as we can, we’re all seated in the breakfast room by seven and lined up on the street with the bikes at 8:30, waiting for the final member of the group to finish mounting her bags so we can get rolling.

As long as we’re waiting anyway, I might as well look around. There’s always something.

So finally we’re underway, but we don’t get far. A few hundred yards later we’re stopped again for an essential task - taking a team photo. I lead us to a spot that I think will be perfect, on the north side of the walled city where I stopped to admire the views yesterday.

Once we’re stopped Suzanne pauses to pose with the latest addition to her wardrobe and then pulls her GorillaPod out of her pannier, lines us up, and then dashes in to join us before the delayed shutter snaps.

Wonder Woman shows off her latest acquisition, purchased just yesterday. She’s wanted her own ever since watching mine in action for the last two days. Who could blame her?

Biking south from Bassano is an easier affair than the ride north into the gorge. The Prealps begin here at Bassano, and heading south the roads are flat and the bike route quiet and well marked. On the way out I get a look at a part of the city I haven’t seen before, and am reminded that it’s another spot I’d love to return to someday for an even longer stay. I’m coming to the realization that places like Bassano - interesting, not too large, not too small, and on the edge between the high country and the flats - work really well as a base for us. There’s a wide variety of rides and hikes radiating out in several directions, as hard or as easy as suits your fancy.

On the way out of town we pass by a structure that looks like a cathedral but isn’t. It’s the Ossuary Temple (Tempio Ossario), surprisingly a war memorial housing the remains of over 5,400 soldiers transferred from military gravesites around the Grappa Massif. construction of the structure was begun in 1908 with the intention that it become the new cathedral, but was interrupted by the Great War. After the war it was decided to resume construction but change its purpose.

Tempio Ossario, a site obviously worth more than a brief pause in the journey.

To everyone’s delight, the ride is much more interesting and enjoyable than we’d been anticipating. We’re on quiet country lanes near or alongside the Brenta for the next ten miles, biking into the beginning of the broad Po Basin with the Prealps quickly receding into the distance behind us. It’s a much prettier ride than we’d expected, through a plane but not plain agricultural landscape with occasional views to the Brenta.

The Prealps rapidly recede into the distance as we move south.

Suzanne finds a colorful backdrop for the day’s bike shot. It looks especially fine with her striking new bike jersey as added color.

The view south. The next real hills won’t come for more than fifty miles, on the other side of the Po basin.

The broad, slow-moving Brenta is generally out of sight but we get an occasional glimpse of it.

About a dozen miles into the ride Suzanne pulls us slightly off route to have a brief look at Cittadella, a medieval fortified city with restored walls first erected in the 13th century. It’s a place that looks fantastic from above, where you can see the complete ring of its almost perfectly circular walls - it would have been a perfect spot for Janos to break out his drone - but today anyway it’s all too crowded to do anything more than spark your imagination of what it could be like to be here walking its walls at a quieter time.

Cittadella presents an exceptional image from above (stolen from the web, obviously).

Entering Cittadella through its eastern gate.

We’ve been seeing a lot of these lions lately. I think everywhere we’ve stayed or visited for more than the past three weeks except in the north around Trento was part of the Venetian empire at one point.

In Cittadella. So what is that symbol that looks like two bicycles on a stand? We saw it also on that cave fortress north of Valstagna.

Just after leaving Cittadella I get stopped by a couple of sights that catch my interest and fall about a mile behind the group. First, there’s the huge gutter spike of a bell tower at Fontaniva that draws me in, and then there’s a striking mural of two bicyclists facing down a pair of horse-mounted Trojan warriors. The extensive description of the mural is only in Italian and I haven’t tried to translate it, but it looks like it’s commemorating a bicycle tour by five riders taken in 2001 on a 3,000 kilometer journey from Fontaniva to Paflagonia, Turkey. Does anyone know of any other bicycle tour that’s gotten such impressive public recognition?

The bell tower of the Duomo at Fontaniva is impressively large. Note my dwarfed bicycle at its base for scale.

A dizzying look up at the bell tower at Fontaniva.

A tribute to an epic journey: in 2001, five cyclists set out from Fontaniva for Paflagonia, 3,000 kilometers away.

I’m the better part of a mile behind the group when the phone rings. It’s Rachael, letting me know that they’re stopped waiting for me. Well, two of the three are stopped anyway. Janos has gone ahead following the mapped route, but Suzanne likes the look of an alternate that she wants to explore instead and they’re waiting for me to join them.

It’s an interesting choice, sometimes dirty, sometimes grassy. We find Janos patiently waiting for us at the other end so he can tell us how enjoyable his ride was on a nice paved bike path instead.

Another mile on, and it’s my turn to stop the group - this time to admire the wildlife at a bridge crossing a small stream. In the water are dozens of fish marking time with their snouts upstream into the current, while above fly some colorful insects that catch and hold my attention. Banded demoiselles (damsel flies), I’ll later learn. What most captivates me is the iridescent blue males that will sit still on a blade for ten or twenty seconds and then briefly spread their four brilliant blue wings in a shocking flash of color.

I spend a considerable period of time in the fool’s errand of trying to capture a still image of this, when I finally remember my camera’s got video and manage to just catch the event. Later I’ll learn that this display is more or less a mating ritual, which you can see in the video - the male takes flight precisely when a female enters the frame.

A male banded demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens).

A female banded demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens).

Next, Rachael’s off on her own out in front when I come across her admiring a goat who’s crossing the pasture to greet her, leaving a cat in the background to observe the scene. Fortunately Rachael’s brought along some scraps from breakfast, perfect for the occasion.

The cat, the goat, the vagabond cyclist.

One of the reasons Rachael’s always got food along.

We’ve still got another twenty miles to cover to Padua, and though we’re still dry the cloud cover is starting to look a bit suspicious. We keep a steady pace the rest of the way in, except for the occasional essential stop.

Poppy stop. The last of the season are just dropping their petals, so it must be time to be heading home.

Gelato stop. Suzanne discretely looks away while Rachael wonders why she’s seeing only half of a fly on her cone.

Suzanne and Janos bike on ahead alone while Rachael and I pause for gelato. We’re sure we’ll come across them somewhere in the next few miles, but we never do - we’ll learn later that they were stopped for a long time waiting for us but our mapped routes weren’t exactly in synch. When we arrive in Padua we find there’s no one home at our B&B, and after calling the host and learning she’s away and won’t arrive for another twenty minutes we call Suzanne to give her the news and then bike back down the street to a cafe to fill the time until our host arrives. While we’re there Suzanne and Janos bike up, I holler at them, and they stop. Suzanne pulls up a chair to join us while Janos bikes ahead, soon calling back to let us know that our host still hasn’t arrived.

Finally we bike to the B&B together too, and just after we reach the door we see our host, breathlessly running up the street to meet us. Once she catches her breath and greets us, she apologizes profusely and explains her tardiness. It’s an interesting story, and to her credit. Last night or the night before she hosted a guest from Costa Rica, who checked out but left behind a watch he’d bought as a gift to take home with him. They’d arranged a script for him to recover it - he’d take the train back to Padua, and she would meet him at the station for a quick hand-off. She was at the station when we first called, which was why she wouldn’t be back for twenty minutes - the train hadn’t arrived yet. And twenty turned into over a half hour because the train was behind schedule.

Entering Padua through the Ponte Molino Gate.

On the Ponte Molino, crossing a branch of the Bacchigleone River.

It’s not even three when we check in, and we’ve got time for at least a brief look around town before dinner. Before then though we rest up and refresh ourselves in the room and Rachael checks our flight schedule to see when we depart from Bologna, and what she learns throws us into fits and tears up that plan for the afternoon. Maybe we’ll get back to Padua someday for a look around, but it’s not destined to happen this time. Perhaps we will - it’s a large city but looks like there’s plenty to see here. It’s listed twice on the UNESCO Heritage list - once for its botanical garden, the most ancient in the world; and again for its 14th century frescoes.

So we’ve reached the end of the road: ours after three months, and theirs after nearly six weeks - the longest bicycle tour that they’ve taken together in many years. It’s been a joy to spend the time with them and an honor to be a part of their journey again, hopefully not for the last time.

Video sound track: The End of the Road, by Kim Waters

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Ride stats today: 40 miles, 400’; for the tour: 1,867 miles, 74,800’

Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 1,867 miles (3,005 km)

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Susan CarpenterAnother engaging TA journal - thanks as always. And a grand finish with Suzanne and Janos! Safe travels and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for good news from Portland.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonThanks! Good so far - we’re in Frankfurt, waiting for our connecting flight. Can’t wait to be home again. Do you suppose civil war will have broken out by the time we get there?
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1 year ago

Suzanne GibsonGreat footage of our ride through Citadella!
I guess I am responsible for the stop in Padua instead of Rovigo as you had originally planned. It seemed to fit better to the beginning of our ride in Italy.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonDidn’t the video come out well though? I’m so glad Rachael does this. I love having the stills and narrative, but the video gives a whole different dimension to remember the day through.
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1 year ago

Rachael AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonDefinitely a great stop!
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1 year ago