Day 36: Rivalta to Verona, Italy

August 26, 2015

Dodie says she had the best sleep ever last night. Out on the grass beside our so Italian, covered terrace, and lemon tree patio, with grapes and olives all around, and absolutely no talkers, gigglers, or smokers! We avoided those irritating people because there were no people at all. There was just (until bed time) the farm lady, who cruised by periodically to see if we needed anything, and to say "tutta bene".

We soon came to realize (and to confirm later in the day) that an "Agritourismo" is a Gasthof, though probably one out in the countryside. Ours turned out to be full on German gasthof quality - that is, in the main building, marble steps, immaculate cleanliness, advanced washroom facilities, breakfast included, evening food menu, and so forth. It's just that with no signage (or maybe some other quirk of timing) we were the only customers! (Later in the day we did see bus tour groups lurking about the villages, and even a drag you into the hills and let you cycle for a while tour group, so maybe our agritourismo was awaiting one of these.)

Breakfast was not overwhelming, but there was some good stuff. This included farm made salami and farm grown tomatoes. The lady said "mangere tutto", so we cleaned her out. Never say something like that to cyclists!

The view from the dining room to the patio in our Agrutourismo

The little patch of grass that made for a good night's sleep

The agritourismo was right on the cycle path - so great - and we set off on the slight downslope beside a canal. For the first while we were still in cycle heaven, passing endless grapes and increasingly, kiwis. The kiwis, sadly, are nowhere near ripe, though they are fully formed.

The Etsch (Adige) cycle route has been great all the way.

Now it's kiwis by the trailside. Kiwis, being a vine, probably are right up the alley of grapre growers

We Continued to pass little villages in the first part of the day

Before the village of Rivili Veronese, things unravelled, as the path decided to climb a mountain. It was still close enough to breakfast that there was a lot of coffee in my system, so not only did I take my own bike up the many slopes, but I helped Dodie by pedalling hers up quite a few as well. It was quite warm, like 35 degrees, and though I drank a lot of water I must have gotten dehydrated, because I felt shaky for a fair while thereafter. Dodie, who hates hills and heat, somehow seemed quite ok with it. This might have had something to do with who was going up the hills twice.

On the other side of the mountain, we noticed that the narrow valley we had been following for about 300 km had now opened up into a broad plain. This plain was filled with factories and houses. We had arrived at the outskirts of Verona.

Looking down from the climb on the broadening valley

Even small churches are beautiful in this area

Drag you up the mountain and let you cycle a bit tour group

Unlike Bolzano, though, there was no super prolonged dance required to get into town. However the signage did drop, and only Dodie and her GPS kept us on target. For a short stint we were on road, too, and exposed to cuckoo Italian drivers. For part of that we had ten riders on rental bikes just ahead of us, and we felt that gave us cyclists a bit of pull. I was keenly aware, though, that as the last man in the queue, I was the first that the drivers were encountering.

Our entry into Verona was pretty spectacular, as we crossed the Ponte Scaligero, a very elaborate thing, that leads into the fort, which is called the Castelvecchio. This injected us quickly into the old town, and we were there - In Verona, Italy!

We are not talking about little mountain villages or even towns now, for Verona is a full fledged city. It is not huge, of course, with a population about 250,000, not a single skyscraper or tall apartment building and no freeways or suchlike abortions. In short, it is wonderful.

Probably Verona's main claim to fame is wholly fictional, as it is the setting for Romeo and Juliette. Consequently it has attractions like Juliette's house, Romeo's house, Juliette's grave, and routine performances of the opera Romeo and Juliette. Verona has, however, lots more to recommend it. It has an Arena built in the first century a.d. and still in use for the operas and other performances. It has an 8th century cathedral, and ten or twelve other zippy churches in the city centre. We have a pamphlet with a proposed churches tour - that has these and maybe another dozen smaller ones. Don't panic, you won't have to read about these, since we would never have the strength to walk them all.

We later found the city camping - way up another darn mountain - so it's good we did not even try for it. Rather, we got a room in an Albergo (hotel) that is ideally situated, between the main square of town and the train station. Our plan now is to take one day to walk through Verona, and then train to Venice. After checking out Venice, we will start to cycle south, to the Po River.

The main square of Verona faces the Arena and is called Piazza Bra. Aside from the arena, there is a large palace - now an art museum, we think, and another museum (we think). This latter building had some huge Egyptian type statues in front. We will be checking that out. The other feature of the Piazza Bra is about 200 meters of straight outdoor restaurants. This lineup leads directly into the geographic centre of the old town, a place just crawling with people strolling about.

The old town is mostly contained in a loop of the Adige river, so it is well defined. It is so much full of pastel and juice coloured palaces, 3 to 5 story attractive apartment buildings, ultra narrow streets, and people that it is exactly what you think an old city in Italy ought to look like!

To get an overview, we hopped on the hop on/hop off tour bus. Although this had canned commentary, it was actually very good. Best of all, the tour included Castel San Pietro, which is high above the city (where the darn camping is). The panorama from there was worth the price of admission.

We finished the day with pizza at one of the zillions of restaurants in the Piazza. Again, it was excellent. The crust was perfectly slightly charred, and the flavours great. Dodie's had cherry tomatoes, basil and buffalo cheese, mine had grilled eggplant and zucchini!

We declared ourselves too stuffed for dessert, but there are five gelato places between the square and our hotel. We went for the "piccolo" size - two scoops. Strachiatella and Nuss, and Extra Dark Chocolate, and Strong Coffee - oh my!

The outskirts of Verona - flat plain filled with factories

We need to find out what all this egyptian stuff is about

The Arena - is from the first century and still in use.

Our Albergo. Our room is the one behind all the flags.

The old town is contained in a loop of the Adige. If you zoom in you can probably see some of the landmarks mentioned here in the blog

The market by "Juliette's house" is mostly trinkets

Typical not fancy apartment dwelling in Verona

Part of restaurant row in the main square

Dodie watches Verona stroll by from our restaurant

Pizza again. Still great, but maybe soon we will actually try some other Italian food!

The street of our hotel - a broad avenue. Tomorrow we will have shots of some of the very narrow streets of the town. By the way, note the marble sidewalks.

Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,825 km (1,133 miles)

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