Day 42: Porto Viro to Berra (mid day) to Francolino: Still alive and on a safe road now!

September 1, 2015

Our first problem today was to get from the marina (Po Venezia - upper right) across the Po and down south of Ariano. Looks simple, right?

We could see that the Bikeline route followed the south (right) bank of the Po, and we could only assume that safety lay in that direction. So we set off from the marina and headed for the closest bridge, which was the bridge at Porto Viro. On our maps the road over the bridge was an innocuous yellow, so we figured it would be ok.

Not so. The bridge was carrying a huge amount of traffic, including many careening semi-trailers, and had no shoulder. So we retreated all the way back to our starting point (a loss of 5 km), and started along the innocuous looking yellow river road, toward the next town (Bottrighe) and bridge. This is where things really got hairy. The little river road still carried lots of speeding cars, and of course had no shoulder. Worse, a thick fog had arisen, cutting visibility seriously. At one point an approaching car swerved towards us, and we wondered why - until we saw the all but invisible cyclist approaching on the other side.

For our part, we had bright flashers and reflective clothing. This did nothing to improve our confidence about making it to Bottrighe. As the cars roared past we were thinking "This is crap, if we could even make it to a train station somewhere we would take off to a sane country - like (despite the unfortunate history), Germany".

The bridge at Porto Viro - judged too dangerous for us!

The misty no shoulder road - no way off!

As we approached Bottrighe, I was astounded to see a hugh structure looming through the fog. It was one of the biggest darn bridges you could imagine - and so high that its access point would be kms back. Still, we went into the town, and stopped first at a bakery with a promising name - Pasticceria dall Amelia. Unfortunately, of the few items inside there were none that we could reasonably buy and eat - they had just a few petit fours, basically.

The bridge at Bottrighe - oh, oh, looks impossible!

We carried on and landed at a place advertising not only pane (bread) but also salumi and formaggio. Dodie went in, and came out having somehow negotiated the creation of two roast beef sandwiches. Cool. But here I was still running on oatmeal. So in I went and found that they had only two pastry items - a creme filled hamburger style bun, and a creme filled cake. I came out with the cake and split it with Dodie. Now we would have some (short term) power!

In Bottrighe - sorry Amelia, nothing good in here

We set off back a couple of km to get onto the bridge, and were relieved at first to see that the access road had a shoulder. But what of the bridge? Hooray! The shoulder was small but usable. The Po is very wide at this point, accounting for the huge bridge. But over we went, and even better, the road beyond had a shoulder too.

The bridge at Bottrighe - judged safe enough!

Our victory in crossing the Po could have turned into a trap, for we had only crossed onto an island, Isola d'Ariano. However Bikeline showed us a bridge that would put us onto the right bank of the Po, at Ariano nel Polesine. Yes! The bridge was marked no bikes, but it was short and there were few cars.

On the other side we came to a large sign. It said, in effect, "Well where have y'all been! Here I am, the Destra Po route, with hundreds of km of lovely safe cycling. Oh, did you remember to start at Goro? That's the safe way to go, y'know!" "Yeah, well thanks", we thought, still working on calming our nerves.

The Po, our river for hundreds of km coming up.

The Ameerican Bar at Ariano. Old folks sitting outside - typical.

The Destra Po cycle route - lots of support signs and a paved mostly car free route.

So that's how we started on the Destra Po cycleway. "Destra" means right, eh. Now we rode the dike, looking down on flat delta lands, and isolated farms with crumbling buildings. Figuring we had had enough rest time, the temperature started rising, and topped 40 degrees. Now we were thinking about shade and water, rather than traffic.

Scattered farms alog the way. Most had tunble down stone buildings.

Towns along the route. We liked these signs with the distances given.

The local corn that is being harvested now.

Flat lands around the Po - with one of the unused stone buildings also visible

We passed the little town of Serravalle, and thought about coming off the dike for a break. "One of us" said - look we can make it to Berra, just 5 km away! After 2 km, the other one of us declared she probably could not make it to Berra. But we found a snippet of shade, rested fot 5 minutes and that allowed us to roll into the sleepy town. Dodie found a shady table in a park, and I found a fruit seller with nectarines. We spread our tent, bags, chairs in the sun, because all had goten soaked in the overnight dew in this moist land.

Our shady shelter at lunch time, but with sun to dry our stuff.

Now we are rested and ready to go. Darlene, our target is Ferrara!

Back up on the dike, we continued riding along. It was much like dike riding in Netherlands - minus the sheep - but rather boring. Below us to the left were scattered farms, growing mostly corn. At first we thought that the corn had somehow been left since last year, since it was so totally dead and dried out as it stood. But now combines were harvesting it, revealing the yellow kernels on cobs that were red.

Occasionally we saw grapes, and especially pears - which were being slowly picked by hand. So far on this trip we have seen no fruit being machine picked. This has to improve quality, but seems to be so much work! There are no foreign workers here, either. It all seems to be a family effort.

We passed a series of villages - Cologna, Alberone, Guarda, Zocca, Ro - none of which have any services to speak of, and so little reason to descend from our lofty path to check them out. Overall, the area appears quite run down. Often run down will translate into quaint, but we decided these were just run down. We did get a reason to visit Ro, because of a detour due to construction on the path. At first we thought this was great, because Ro has an 8th century church. Well, the church was closed and the detour abandoned us on one of those no shoulder, should be safe enough but isn't, roads.

After a while, we looked up a series of embankments and could see where the path probably was. We sent a scout up there on foot and the report was that our bike way was there waiting for us. However the embankments were too steep to push the bikes up. So we continued on the road until Dodie spied a local mountain bike rider take off up a side lane. We followed, and with some reasonable pushing got back on the paved dike top.

To our right from the dike top was the river. It was wide and brown and seemed to move rather slowly. We were surprised to note that though the river was placid, there was no boat traffic at all. That is, no pleasure boats, no barges, no river tours, no ferries. Ok, one boat did come along. It seemed to be some sort of boat and bike thing, since there were a lot of bikes stowed on deck. We could look it up sometime, but that was it.

As we cycled away from the Po Delta we felt some regret that it had not been at all interesting, like the Rhone delta. We looked again at a guide book we had been given at the marina, and saw all the information about the ecological wonders of the region, and all the wildlife we should have seen. Dunno, it was just a dud for us.

Part of what we apparently missed in the Po delta

As far as we could see, the only accommodation was a Camping plus of course albergos in Ferrara. Ferrara is a renaissance city with some interesting things to see, so we made that our goal. Signage on the path advised turning away from the river at Francolino, to head maybe 10 km southwest to Ferrara. We did that, but immediately saw a sign for an Agriturismo in Francolino. The sign gave the address as 10 La Strozza. Dodie just happened to spot this in the GPS, which was good, because there were no further signs, even when the way required a leap of faith onto a long farm track.

When we arrived, a man answered the door, and we asked about a "camere". He seemed to acknowledge that they had such here, but was uncertain about whether there was one for rent. Fortunately he was able to find Mrs. If you want some decision making, you need the lady of a house.

So here we are in Agriturismo La Strozza. Tomorrow we can cruise over to Ferrara - the Camping, or maybe something downtown, and see what the place is all about. We are slightly ahead of schedule, so we think we could afford a part day of sightseeing.

p.s. There seem to be four rooms here - designated by animals. There is the cow, horse, sheep, and bunny room. Jeremy and Melissa - we got the Bunny Room!

There was no vehicle traffic on most of the dike top path, but there was this little truck.

One big crop other tha corn was poplar trees. Here they are being harvested.

A photo of the path hours of cycling after the first one above. No change!

Dodie and the GPS somehow found this track that lead to our B and B

Today's ride: 84 km (52 miles)
Total: 2,005 km (1,245 miles)

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