To Porto Tolle

October 21, 2020

Today’s ride

It’s quite foggy when we get up this morning, considerably more so than yesterday; and still quite chilly. We take our time over breakfast, and then I take the camera out for a few photos of town in the fog. I tell Rachael I’ll be back in ten or fifteen minutes, but it ends up being closer to just two. It’s too cold and damp.

The look this morning in Comacchio. Our room is in Villa Cavour, the white building just to the right of the bridge.

In Comacchio. There. Three is enough. You get the idea.

We have a short, flat (of course - it’s flat in all directions from here) ride today, so we have plenty of time. We stay in the room until the 10:30 checkout time, and then head out of town. The fog has gotten even worse since breakfast though, and visibility is less than a hundred yards. It takes no time at all for Rachael to disappear in the distance when I stop for a photo.

The ride starts on a very quiet road, and the few cars that pass are traveling slowly enough that it feels reasonably safe. Still though, when we come to a pasticceria three miles later, it feels like the prudent thing to stop in for another pastry and coffee and wait for improvements.

It’s a small pasticceria with minimal services - no chairs, no WiFi, no WC. We stand, and use the hot spot on our phones to browse while we’re waiting, so the lack of chairs and WiFi is no problem. The lack of a WC is though. Biking in the fog has given Rachael ideas, so she steps outside the cafe to look around for some suitably secluded spot. She returns 20 minutes later, relieved but a bit prickly. She found a narrow, weedy alley not far away; but in reassembling herself she found that she was perforated by hundreds of tiny burrs. She’s been so long in returning because she’s been busy de-stickering herself.

Not ideal cycling conditions yet. Still damp and chilly, and you can’t see much of anything. It takes no time at all for Rachael to disappear up the road.

Three miles into the ride, we decide it’s time for a break from the fog.

An hour later, and we’re off again. It’s still foggy, but the visibility has improved to perhaps an eighth of a mile - good enough that we feel safe riding on this still quiet road. Conditions gradually improve over the next hour or so, and by the time we arrive at Goro the sun is starting to break through.

And now that we can see a bit, we may as well tell you where we are and where we’re headed. We’re crossing the Po River delta, bound for Porto Tolle. Most of this region is part of the Po Delta Regional Park in Veneto, and still part of the UNESCO biosphere. Most of the day’s ride is along canals or branches of the mighty Po, fractured here into several large distributaries as it reaches the Adriatic.

The fog limits visibility, but it does give an atmospheric quality to the ride. My favorite moment of the day is brief, and comes upon us too suddenly for me to break out the camera. Instead, we just watch and listen in awe as a flock of about a dozen swans emerges from the fog ahead and flies in our direction, and then continues on toward the river. It’s completely silent, save for the sounds of their wings ruffling in the wind - amazingly, we can still hear them fly when they’re a few hundred yards gone.

We break for lunch sitting on a bank overlooking the Po di Goro, the first of the large branches of the Po that reaches the sea at Goro.

Visibility is much improved when we start out again. We’re riding beside a large canal, but we can seldom see it for the trees.

And when we do come to a break in the trees, we can still hardly see through because of the fog. It feels spellbinding and magical to come to one such gap and see a pair of white horses on the far bank.

Riding along the right bank of the Po di Goro, the first of the large branches of the river. The sun is just on the edge of breaking through, as are the colors of autumn.

Following the Po di Goro. It’s chilly and weather is unpredictable this time of year, but if we stay long enough we’ll enjoy the changing colors.

On the Po di Goro. I wonder if this is the same flock of swans we saw fly overhead a mile back. The numbers are about right.

Looking inland up the Po di Goro, from our lunch spot. No benches or anything to sit on, but a rain jacket will do.

A European shag, I think - or perhaps a great cormorant - I’m going to have to start paying attention to see if I can distinguish these two. Also, 11 black headed gulls (easily distinguished from the similar Mediterranean gull by their black tipped primaries).

The view from our lunch spot. Quiet, except for the squawking of gulls and the rattle of cars crossing the nearby pontoon bridge.

At Goro, we cross this branch of the Po over the Ponte di Barche del Po di Goro - a pontoon bridge, its surface laid across a series of floating concrete boats. This is only the second pontoon bridge like this that we’ve seen. The first was also crossing the Po, two years ago somewhere west of Mantua. This one, like the other one we saw, is a rattle trap that we can hear from well up the river while we eat lunch as cars slowly and noisily cross the river.

A few miles later we come to the next major branch of the river, the Po Della Donzella - and a second pontoon bridge.

The floating bridge crossing the Po di Goro.

the surface of Ponte di Barche del Po di Goro is well worn, with fairly large gaps here and there. Bikers cross for free, but are required to walk.

The Ponte di Barche del Po di Gnocca is in much better shape - fresh paint, newish planks. Fine to bike across, as long as you keep to the center.

For the remainder of the ride we follow this branch upriver to Porto Tolle, the point at which it branches off from the main trunk of the river. Riding conditions by now are beautiful, even though we don’t see the river itself because of the dike separating us from it.

We’re staying for the next two nights in Villa Italia, a restaurant hotel in Ca’ Tiepolo, one of the several tiny communities that comprise Porto Tolle. Just yards behind us is the Po di Venizia, the main channel of the river. We could walk over for a look today, but it should still be there in the morning.

Today’s video link.

Video sound track: Is Pettit e Passato (The worst is over), by Fabrizio Moro

About The Plan

We were recently reminded that some of you still think we’re planning to cross the Apennines, bound for Umbria and Tuscany. That is SO yesterday’s news though. We changed our plans after contemplating crossing a 3,000’ pass west of Pesaro and Urbino, and deciding we wouldn’t enjoy it much under the threTened rainy conditions.

The new, improved plan is that we’re going to bike west along the Po for as long as conditions remain bikeable (at least bikeable under our quite self-protective standards). With luck we’ll get a couple more weeks up here, after which we’ll probably hop a train down to Puglia. Here’s the road map we’re following, for as long as we can stick with it:

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Ride stats today: 39 miles, 300’; for the tour: 1718 miles, 77,300’

Today's ride: 39 miles (63 km)
Total: 1,745 miles (2,808 km)

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Suzanne GibsonYour Po ride is bringing back fond memories. Janos and my first bicycle tour together was along the Po in 2001, starting almost at its source (which was inaccessible due to snow) and riding to the Adriatic. Lucky you two to have Piacenza, Cremona etc on the itinerary.
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4 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonIt’s thanks to you that Piacenza’s on the ticket, Suzanne. If I’m remembering correctly, two years ago when we were in Cremona you said that Piacenza was your favorite city in Europe.
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4 years ago