To Pesaro

May 9, 2023

The plan

So today begins the final ‘third’ of the tour, although at a full five weeks it’s a hefty third. The plan has undergone some revisions - especially after we left Sicily earlier than planned, which accounts for why this third is as long as it is - but it still begins at Pesano after catching the train north from Termoli and ends in Bologna where our suitcases are awaiting us for our flight home.

A few notes on the route:

In a very recent change, we’ve decided to stay two extra days in Pesaro (making four altogether) rather than biking through Rimini and Ravenna because rain is expected (and on every day for the next two weeks, in fact) and we weren’t that enthusiastic about the ride that way when we took it three years ago. Instead, we’ll take the train to Alfonsine and bike from there to Comacchio.
There’s a break in the route at Lake Garda, where we’ll catch a ferry up the lake from Salo to Riva. They’re, we’ll meet up with Suzanne and Janos and bike together with them to Parma for the last week of the tour - saving the best for last!
At the end we’ll take the train from Parma to Bologna. We love cycling in a country with such an extensive and bike-friendly train network!

An Italian Spring, Part III: Pesaro to Bologna, May 9 - June 12.

The day

The train ride to Pesaro is uneventful, which is just as we like them. We’re ticketed on an Intercity train with reserved space for the bikes, and no connections - as simple as it gets. We check out of our apartment at 9:30 and bike the quarter mile to the train station, leaving us plenty of slack before our 10:09 scheduled departure. We have even more slack than we expected when the train arrives twenty minutes late, which is fine for us because we have no connections to make and can’t check in to our apartment until an hour and a half after arrival anyway. In the other hand, because the train is behind schedule the stops here and in Pesaro are very brief and we have to be well organized and efficient to board and detrain posthaste.

Nice! The Termoli station has an elevator to take you down to the sottopassgio.

Unfortunately, there’s no elevator for the other platforms.

Waiting, for around forty minutes. Not bad - it’s warm out and the sun is shining.

On board! As easy as you can hope for really.

This and the interior of tunnels are our view for the next three hours. Good time to read a book or catch up on the blog.

We arrive in Pesaro at around 1:30. We manage to get ourselves and our bikes and bags off the train in only about a minute, and as soon as I’ve stepped off with the second bag the agent waves the engineer to start rolling again.

With an hour and a half until we can check in, we decide we should fill it by filling ourselves and take lunch as our main meal of the day. Rachael finds a promising restaurant a few minutes away, so we bike right over. When we arrive the server is outside the front door on a ladder doing some sort of maintenance task. We ask her if they’re still open, and she goes in to the kitchen to check and shortly comes back to usher us in. We’re the only diners, and they could be easily have been about to shut the door for the afternoon.

We’re seated at a windowside table where we can keep an eye on the bikes leaning on the wall outside and are treated to an exceptional meal. We’re just finishing when the first of the two chefs leaves the restaurant, hops on his own bike, and heads off.

An outstanding introduction to our stay in Pesaro.

We’re the only customers. All this for us!

A bit of pickled vegetables, like you might get in Japan. What is the term for these small unordered offerings restaurants bring you at the beginning of a meal?

The contorni: a mixed salad and assorted vegetables in season.

It’s nearing three when we finish lunch. Rachael WhatsApp’s our host that we’ll be there in ten minutes, and we bike off. Along the way we pass probably a dozen or more other bikers and ride much of the way on bike lanes. Pesaro prides itself for its bike-friendliness, and we’re quickly reminded of why we thought this would be a wonderful place to live when we first visited it three years ago.

And if we did live here or return some day for an even longer stay we could do no better than the exceptional apartment we’ve booked ourselves into. Lucky us! Even if it’s a complete rainout, we’re in a perfect place to wait it out. For today though, as soon as we’re checked in Rachael rushes off to the store; and once she’s back we take off on our own hike and bike to make the most of the good weather while it’s still here.

Our excellent home for the next four nights. Here, the living room and kitchen.

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