Category: Northern Italy

Allan and I took the hotel-provided water taxi to the collection of small islands of Murano  in the Venetian Lagoon on this beautiful clear morning.  After an already long and interesting history, in 1291 Murano became the center for glass making in Venice when all of the glass makers in Venice were forced to move to Murano.  This move was because of the abundance of wood powered furnaces in use and the consequent risk of fire in Venice proper.

When we exited the taxi, we were ushered into a factory for a demonstration and given a tour of the showroom.  When it became clear that we did not intend to purchase, we were ushered out of the door!  As we proceeded down the main street of town we came upon a family-owned operation, Schiavon, where we again saw stunning chandeliers, vases, jewelry and other small items, large abstract figures.  After purchasing a lavender-colored gondola, we were invited to see the glass factory at work and given an “upstairs” tour of the showroom.  Ultimately we bought a set of glasses and matching pitcher inspired by Miro and designed by our new best friend.

We continued to window shop up and down the main street, venturing down a tree lined boulevard for lunch and on to the vaparetto for the short ride back to the mainland of Venice.

Connie and Clay met us for our afternoon visit to the Peggy Gugenheim Museum.  After finding the vaparetto stop we worked hard to get a ticket from the machine, but were thwarted at every try.  SO we hopped on the next boat that came along anyway.  Just as we were getting off of the boat, three people in uniform asked for our tickets.  No explaining would sway their statement that we each needed to pay a heft fine in addition to our 7.5 euro vaparetto ticket.  After missing our stop and ending up on the wrong side of the canal arguing with them, we finally paid the fine and walked back to the museum.  I suspect that this will be our last trip on the vaparetto!  The museum was great.  It is housed in what was her residence and at the entrance to each room are photos of the art and furniture as it was when she lived in the home, right on the Grand Canal.  The collection included paintings by Picasso, Klee, Miro, Dali, Chagall, Magritte, and many other artists I did not recognize.  Some of our favorites…

We had a 26 minute walk back to the hotel, but that was preferable to the vaparetto.  It was actually a pleasant walk since the later afternoon brought a nice breeze and somewhat cooler temperatures.  Just before the hotel, we stopped for a spritz (or 2) and visited with a family from Southern California.  Our tour of the Grand Canal (postponed from last night) left at 8 and it was glorious!  We went up the canal, past the train station, several small islands, the cruise ship port, out to St. Mark’s Square where we had good sightings of the Bridge of Sighs and big hotels along the lagoon, back into the Grand Canal and back to the hotel.  What a beautiful way to see the city–by water at sunset.

Since there was no time for dinner before the tour, we found Trattoria de Pepi  near the hotel and each had a small dish to fuel our famished bodies so we could sleep.  Allan and his cuttlefish ink pasta created an abstract painting on the tablecloth.  We thought it as good or better than many we’ve seen.  It was a busy, but very fun day!

Guido showed us the fastest way to cross the Grand Canal from our hotel…the gondola taxi.  We learned that locals stand, but it is okay to sit and that if you should fall in, don’t worry too much about swimming just be sure to keep you mouth closed!  The fish and fruit and vegetable markets are just across the canal from the hotel and typical of the markets all over Europe.  Everything is fresh and displayed in a way that makes you want to buy.

After visiting the market for several minutes and learning about the different fish and seafood, we followed the crowd to the Rialto Bridge, stopping to buy hats and to learn about the ancient city of Venice.  Missing from this cluster of built up islands is greenery so many of the balconies are decorated with flowers.

After twisting and turning through the narrow streets we arrived at St. Mark’s Square where Guido walked us past the long lines to the tour entrance to the Doge’s Palace.  In the palace the ceilings and walls were highly decorated with gilded plaster and paintings by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.  Not only was the palace the residence for the doge, it was also the political courthouse and the seat of the doge’s government.  The history of Venice is quite interesting and extensive, too long and complicated for this blog!  Political prisoners were tried and convicted in the palace and taken immediately to the connected prison across the covered Prisons’ Bridge where they spent the rest of their lives chained by their legs to the wall of the prison, 4 to a room, with only bread and water as sustenance.  When Lord Byron was here in the 19th century he renamed the bridge, the Bridge of Sighs.  It was from this bridge that prisoners got their last views of the bright and sunny outside and they sighed. The Bridge of Sighs was immortalized in Canto IV of Byron’s lengthy narrative poem, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.”

The next stop on our tour was St. Mark’s Basilica, the most famous of the city’s 120 churches (there are 118 islands that make up the city of Venice). The church’s exterior is adorned by a collection of war trophies from conquests throughout Europe, like these horses from Constantinople. Our tour progressed back to the Rialto Bridge where we  said, “arrivederci” to Guido and began our search for an air conditioned place for lunch.  We settled on Ristorante Malibran (not very air conditioned) and had a good Ventian lunch before winding our way back to the Foscari Palace for a nice long and cool nap.  Dinner was on the roof of the hotel with the expectation of a tour of the Grand Canal.  After lightning and a few sprinkles, we finished dinner inside the hotel and the tour was postponed until tomorrow night.  We had a great view of the city rooftops and enjoyed a serenade of laughter from the laughing gulls on our rooftop.

 

Our final bike ride of the trip began at 8 and we were glad for the early start since it was already 90 outside!  Today’s ride was a 20km out and back loop around the hotel.  It was mostly flat  with a few hills where we had lovely views of the vineyards.

As always, our Backroads trip was excellent.  We had plenty of healthy exercise (but not too much since we (except Charlie) had e-bikes), breathed fresh air, saw the beautiful countryside from Parma to Verona, smelled flowers, flowering trees and a few cows, ate too much Italian food, drank Italian wine and learned about the culture of this ancient area of Italy.

After the last ride we climbed on the bus for  Venice’s Marco Polo airport.  It took about 20 minutes to walk from our bus drop off point to the water taxis.  Charlie is leaving us here so he found public bus 5 and headed to his hotel for the night while we found the speedy water taxis and headed in to Venice, along the Grand Canal to the Foscari Palace Hotel, our home until Tuesday.  This is the view from our dock.

We rested a bit in the very cold and welcome air conditioning and began exploring Venice.

Charlie let us know he was at a cafe in St. Mark’s Square so we wound our way across canals, down alleyways and in and out of shops until we found him.  We looked around there for a few minute and traced our steps to Trattoria del Cuore di Venezia which we had seen earlier.  We were treated with a spritz (from Wikipedia: The Spritz is a wine-based cocktail commonly served as an aperitif in Northeast Italy. The drink is prepared with prosecco wine, a dash of some bitter liqueur such as Aperol, Campari, Cynar, or, especially in Venice, with Select.) from the proprietor and I enjoyed the best lasagna I’ve had on the trip.

Charlie went to find the vaparetto (water taxi) back to his hotel and his flight home tomorrow.  We wound our way back through the alleyways and across canals to the Foscari Palace.  A needed early night for all of us!

This morning began as all Backroads mornings began, with a complete, filling breakfast, snack packing, bike preparation and route rap.  Licia’s route rap this morning was fun.  She made a model of the day’s ride and with her exuberant personality she went through the day and pointed out issues and interesting tidbits along the way while we all listened intently.

The first interesting event happened early in the ride when we faced a one way bridge.  We waited patiently to take our turn and cross the road.  On this ride we saw windmills and on other days we’ve seen solar farms and hydroelectric dams.  Italy works hard to be energy efficient.

The majority of the ride today was along the Adige River which is managed like an aqueduct.  As we rode on the path along the river we looked down on beautiful lush valleys and looked up to fortresses perched on hills above us.

As is typical in a Backroads trip, we came over a hill and had our first view of Lake Garda below us in the distance.  We continued a few more kilometers before arriving in the town of Bardolino and further to the Casetto Winery.  The white wine was quite tasty (and I don’t usually like white wine), I didn’t care for the rose and didn’t taste the red.  Lunch was a buffet of salads, vegetables, fruit and chicken.

The grounds of the winery were lush with vineyards, olive trees, pomegranate trees and roses.  The wine is made from three varieties of grapes and we had a tour of the vineyard.  Our guide explained how to tell the difference in the three varieties. The entire operation at Casetto is accomplished by hand.

Allan, Charlie and I rode on to our hotel, Hotel Villa del Quar.

While we were riding and tasting, Clay and Connie took the day off and went into Verona for  some relaxing shopping.  Clay was accosted by a warrior woman with a sword, but he managed to wrest the sword from her and lived to tell about it.

After a short rest, we met our new friends in the garden for a Proseco toast and hors d’oeuvres followed by a full course dinner and celebrated a successful week of bike riding in Northern Italy.  We said formal goodbyes, talked, laughed and ate too much.

Leaving Mantua from the Casa Poli Hotel was an easy flat ride along Lago Inferiori where swans were resting on the calm lake,

  to a bike path between canals and cornfields, along the Mincio River to Peschiera on Lake Garda.  The river is tightly controlled  all along is 75 km using the water flow to generate electricity as well as for irrigation.  It was very hot again, but a beautiful ride.  The wild flowers along the side of the road and amid the grains in the fields are beautiful–lots of Queen Anne’s lace and poppies.

We stopped at the little town of Borghetto for a coffee.  The 14th century Ponte Visconteo sits atop a dam on the Mincio River.  In addition to the Ponte, the Scaliger Castle (Fortress) looms above Borghetto. The castle dates to the 10th century, but most of the current structure was constructed in the 14th century due to a catastrophic earthquake that shook most of the Veneto region in 1117.   The water mills there were used to grind wheat and other grains.  The river is glacial and beautifully clear.

Following a large group of kids on bikes out of Borghetto, we continued on this well-marked and well-travelled trail most all of the way to Peschiera.  We crossed the river on a wooden bridge with flower boxes along the rails and entered the walled city of Peschiera an area which has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age and our stopping point for lunch.  We ate along a clear canal at Rocca’s.

During lunch, we enjoyed watching this coot, mallards, a great crested grebe and some good sized fish beg for food below us.

After lunch, we strolled to a famous place for gelato, Homemade.  Clay always enjoys his gelato and the rest of us did too!  After our stop in Peschiera I continued on for the afternoon ride.  The rest of our group shuttled to the hotel.

The afternoon ride was the first one that was hilly and gave me the opportunity to use the electric part of my electric bike.  We followed Stefani on an alternate route out of town, along Lake Garda’s shore.  People (and ducks) were enjoying the beach, the clear beautiful water and the piers reaching out into the lake.  During the ride we saw kiwi vines–Italy is the second largest producer of kiwi fruit (after China, where the vine is native).  We rode up hills, through vineyards and fruit orchards, and through small towns.  It was a good ride.

For the evening we bussed into Verona and walked through the Borsa Portal (known as the South Gate) into the old city.  We enjoyed Verona in the evening and had an excellent dinner complete with Valpolicella and Amarone wine in the Piazza deal Erbe at Ristorante Maffei.

 

We’re moving today, so we had a short bus ride to the walled hamlet of Sabbioneta, leaving Emiliana-Romagna and beginning our ride to Lombardia.  Since we are on the Pianura Padana, the flood plain of the Po River (the biggest river in Italy), our entire ride was flat…it was quite hot though!   Our first stop was Teatro all’antica, one of three remaining Renaissance theaters in Italy, which has been restored to close to its original beauty.  The rest of the morning we rode on a bike path along the Po River and saw small churches, houseboats on the Po River and more fields of corn, spelt and wheat.

We rode on gravel, cobblestones, pot holed asphalt, beautiful asphalt  and this interesting bridge supported by concrete boats.

Lunch was at Trattoria Bigiollla in Borgoforte where we had a salad buffet, pasta and for dessert called sbrisolone.  It is like a big crumbly cookie–not too sweet, but very satisfying.  After lunch our ride was more of the same…I stopped about 5 km from the hotel, Allan rode in to Casa Poli.  Charlie has “the bug” so today he stayed on the bus from Tabiano Castle and went straight to Mantua.

After resting a few minutes, we walked down the street to the bike shop, looking for a local bike shirt, but were not successful.  Lorenzo, our guide for the old town of Mantua met us in the hotel lobby and we set out to tour the town.  We saw the old Pescherie (fish market) designed by Guilio Romano.  It is not far from the meat market and the vegetable market.  We stopped at a Salumeria (salami store) along the way and tasted a local delicacy called mostarda…from Wikipedia…Mostarda di frutta (sometime also called only mostarda) is a Northern Italian condiment made of candied fruit and a mustard-flavoured syrup. Commercially the essential oil of mustard is employed, which has the advantage of transparency; in home cooking, mustard powder heated in white wine may be used. Traditionally mostarda was served with boiled meats, the bollito misto which is a speciality of northern Italian cooking. More recently it has become a popular accompaniment to cheeses.  Our taste was plain and it was quite spicy–tasted as though it had horseradish in it.  I suspect it would be good on goat cheese.  We continued toward one of the three lakes surrounding Mantua.  The lakes are man made and acted as a protective moat during ancient times.  There were many interesting buildings and stories throughout the town.  We saw the Piazza Della Erbe and the Rutunda of St. Lorenzo (the oldest church in town), St. Andrea’s Basilica (a renaissance masterpiece by Leon Battista Alberti), the Cathedral of Mantua (the duomo, where Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque architectures are all mixed together), the Ducal Palace (headquarters of the powerful Gonzaga family) and the Castle of San Giorgio.

This astronomical clock was commissioned by Gonzaga and built in 1473 because many of the merchants would not make decisions unless the stars were in the right astrological position.  The clock still works but needs adjustment every six months.

After our walk through the old town of Mantua, we ate at Osteria Andes (since it was the closest place we could find that opened at 7 instead of 8!  And backtracked along our original walk , past the hotel to the best gelato store in town, Master Cream Mantova.  The gelato was good as it has been everywhere and while we ate ours, we particularly enjoyed watching these two Italian men eat their gelato.  They both did share with the cute dog.

Another good day in Northern Italy!!

After breakfast our ride backtracked yesterday’s course, but this time it was downhill, whooo hoo! Again, through beautiful countryside…chestnuts are forming, corn is ripening, and since the weather here allows up to 5 harvests of grain, some fields are green, some are cut down to the ground and some are in amber waves.

We stopped mid-morning in a small town for coffee and to rest our legs, sharing the caffe with local Italians who had gathered for the market.  After coffee, we continued through the town and passed a castle with a filled moat.  I can’t remember ever seeing a castle with a water filled moat.

Lunch was at a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere, Fattoria del Boschetto,…a buffet of local vegetables, grains and meat. Allan, Connie and I decided to end our ride there; I was feeling a bit under the weather. Charlie and Clay continued on to our next event, the CIAOLATTE organic dairy.

Mama Parmigiano welcomed us with a cup of gelato that she makes from the cow’s milk.  She owns 250 head of Chianina cattle–they are huge!  A bull stands no less than 6 feet tall and they are completely white. They are more commonly used as beef cattle, but Mama Parmigiano finds them superior to other breeds for making cheese.  The cows are milked two times per day and it takes no less than 130 gallons of milk to produce one round of cheese.

To tour the processing plant, our first step was to cover our shoes…we began the tour in the mixing room where 5 vats that each held 260 gallons are filled with milk.  Rennet is added and that begins the cheese-making process.  The cheese maker stirs the cheese with a whisk like instrument called a “spino” to break up the clumps of cheese until they are the size of rice grains.  The mixture is heated to 55 degrees C and the minuscule clumps are put back together with another tool.  This process is entirely dependent on the cheese maker.  There is no machine that can do a better job of making the cheese.  The rounds of cheese, two per vat, are stacked for a day or two, allowing the whey to drain from the cheese. Next the rounds are moved to the maturation room and soaked in salt water which creates the rind. Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is regulated only produced by grass fed cows from a small region.  Allan enjoyed tasting the 2-year and 1-year old cheese.

We rode in the van back to Tabiano Castle  and after a short rest, everyone (except me, still not feeling well I rested until dinner) went to the Commanderia deal Gusto and made the pasta that was part of dinner.  They made spinach and basil, chocolate and regular tagliatelle pasta.  It was excellent.  Dinner was typical Italian style…pasta, salad, meat and potatoes and dessert.  Dessert was gelato from the CIAOLATTE dairy with traditional (aged) Modena  Balsamic vinegar topping–excellent!  Following gelato was a chocolate cookie bar.

Great day!!

 

We met the Backroads leaders (Stefani and Licia), van support people (Rachel and John) and participants (from all across the USA) at the Mestre train station, across the street from our hotel for the night. All of us boarded a big comfortable bus and set out for a three hour ride to just outside of Parma. The bus ride through the Italian countryside was beautiful. We saw grain fields, corn fields, vineyards, peach, apricot and other fruit orchards and most of the houses had terra cotta tile roofs. We arrived at a public park (Corte do Giarola) on the Taro River in Parma which most recently had been an agricultural center and prior to that a nunnery and even further back in time, a medieval fort. Licia prepared a picnic lunch for us which was excellent and fueled us for our ride. The rain began to fall as we ate and before lunch was over, it was hailing!! We stretched lunch until there were only puddles remaining and set out…

The bike ride through Emilia-Romagna province was as beautiful from the vantage point of the bike as it was from the bus. It is an agricultural area and the one of the few provinces that is home to the true Parmesiano-Regiano cheese. One of the biking benefits is using all of the senses to explore. We could smell the Holstein cattle long before we saw them and more pleasantly the confederate jasmine, Acacia, and Linden trees and other flowers.  We learned to recognize spelt (in the photo, with much extraneous foliage) from wheat (simply the wheat).  There were fields of vegetables, like these tomatoes, and alfalfa hay.

Our first glimpse of Tabiano Castle was just a speck on top of a high hill, but we had better views as we biked up…We thoroughly enjoyed the 33 km ride, arriving at Tabiano Castle around 4ish.

After showering and resting a bit, we stormed the castle…actually, we toured the castle.  It was built between the 10th and 11th century to guard via Emilia (an ancient Roman road) and the salt mines.  It changed hands many times over the centuries but was bought in 1892 by the Corazzo family who renovated the castle, using the best Italian artisans to decorate the beautiful rooms.  It is used now for weddings and other events and as a tourist destination.  We saw the huge wine cellar, the stables,  the hall of mirrors (a ballroom with lovely carvings on the wall and ceiling), the dining room with a (walk-in) fireplace.  Part of the castle is in use today as a residence.

Dinner this evening was in the old cheese house, il caseficio and we were treated to a show by the local  resident, Luigi.

Happy Father’s Day to my amazing father.  I wish you were here to help me identify all of the birds we’ve seen.  You are such a great teacher and when people ask me when I became interesting in birding, I tell them I’ve always been interested in birding.  I thought everyone walked and talked about the birds, flowers and trees and learned their names.

Hope you are having a wonderful day, I’m thinking of you!

The villa’s owner met us at 11 and we said goodbye to Casa Rina and Lake Como soon thereafter.  The roads we traveled after leaving Como were almost entirely toll roads.  Our first few encounters with the automatic toll collection system were stressful–where to insert the ticket…how much money to insert…where to insert the money?  We learned fast and had few problems until we accidentally entered the “telepass” lane instead of the “take a ticket” lane.  The impatient Italian driver behind us honked his horn, we waved for him to back up and suddenly the barrier rose and we went through without a ticket.  Mistake…the next time we had to pay the toll, there was a person in the lane we chose, he spoke very little, maybe no, English and was quite impatient.  He generated a ticket that we really don’t understand and motioned us on.  We were careful to choose the correct lane from then on.

We stopped in Verona on our way to Venice.  It is purported to be where Romeo and Juliet was set and there are many references to the play, most notably the balcony where the love scene played out.   Entering the old city through a huge gate, we (Connie wasn’t feeling well and stayed in the car) headed down the first street we saw to lunch at a small outdoor cafe (across from an ancient theater) and followed lunch by gelato.

We also saw an ancient arena (Roman coliseum) where throughout the summer they will be performing famous operas…sorry we will miss that!  The signs to Juliet’s balcony took us through the old town, but we did finally find it.

We drove to the Mestre Train Station and I checked in to the Best Western while Allan, Clay and Charlie went round and round the block trying to find the Hertz parking lot and/or office.  We finally returned the car, settled in to our rooms, and are having our final bottle of Amarone wine.  Tomorrow we meet the Backroads trip…