bike tour – Riveted

Venice to Florence Video Tour

Laura Domela — Thu, 29 May 2014 03:05:00 +0000

Kevin made us a cool YouTube channel playlist that has all the videos he put together of our bike tour from Venice to Florence (including the first couple days in Venice mostly on boats, but it sets a nice mood for the rest of the bike tour and it's one of my favorite, actually, even though there are no bikes). I thought I'd put a link to it here in case you wanted a convenient place to get to the videos (and also so I can find it later, because this blog is like my own personal notebook sometimes. I forget things and need to look them up. Whatever. Shut up.)

These videos are quite nice (and I plan to watch them all over again from the start the minute we get home, or maybe right now).

Coolest trip I've ever done. Honestly.

Oh yeah, also: All of these were shot on an iPhone, mostly while riding a bike!

Packing up the Bikes

Laura Domela — Wed, 28 May 2014 18:28:51 +0000

So sad, but it had to be done — we packed the bikes into their suitcases today (Wednesday). We have a morning flight out of Florence on Friday, the pre-wedding cocktail party was tonight, the wedding is tomorrow at 12:30pm and the reception and dinner afterwards…so, not a lot of time to deal with packing and stuff.

Here they are pre-disassembly with their accompanying suitcases:

This was only the second time we'd put them into the suitcases (the first time was at home in Portland…they've been in full bike mode ever since we got to Venice) and we rocked it. Smooth, fast, and the lid closed on the first try. Woohoo!

All ready to go!

We took a big bag of clothes and stuff over to the Mailboxes, Etc. in Florence (yep, they have one) and mailed it home. About $100, but an overweight bag (if we could fit everything in it) would be about the same price (with some added stress and hassle), and an additional bag would be more than double that (about $260, plus you'd have to buy an extra bag), so we happily took the ship-it-home route.

We lugged our bag of stuff across the river, only to show up at the front door of the shipping shop during the hours they were closed. (Typical for the area and maybe the whole country, many shops are closed for a few hours in the middle of the day.) They would reopen at 3:30pm (it was 2:30) so we went and had some lunch and coffee down the road a bit to burn an hour. At 3:30 the shop promptly reopened and we were in and out in about 4 minutes.

Once back at the apartment getting ready for the 5pm cocktail party (just a block away), I got an email from the guy at the shop that I'd left my passport there (when he was photocopying it). Oops. We didn't have time to go get it today before the party (plus I didn't want to hightail it across town in 4-inch heels and an ostrich feather skirt!), so we'll pop over there in the morning when they open at 9am to retrieve it (wearing tennies and jeans).

The wedding guests meet tomorrow at 12:30pm in front of Neptune's Fountain outside the Palazzo Vecchio and I'm certain it will be an incredible day. The cocktail party tonight was lovely — great people, incredible location (the Palazzo Ricasoli, I mentioned yesterday where we started our walking tour). After the party, we stopped to see if we could get into one of the restaurants that was full last night and got right in (15 minutes earlier makes a huge difference)– a place just down our street called Olio e Convivium, and it was very nice — good food, cool interior, and fabulous service! So many great places to eat and drink in this neighborhood!

Hey, look at this!!

Finally, Florence!

Laura Domela — Sat, 17 May 2014 00:08:00 +0000

Today was the last day (Day 6) of our bike tour, and we both agree it's been one of the coolest things we've ever done. There's just no better way to see and get a feel for a place than to ride bikes through it. I also think the way we did it, on our own bikes with regular clothes (well, bike shorts hidden underneath, of course) helped the "fitting in" feeling we were going for.

We got up earlier than usual in Brisighella this morning because we opted to catch the 8:30am train to Borgo San Lorenzo (instead of the 12:30pm train). We waffled at first because we thought we might want to spend more time in Brisighella, but since we arrived on the early side yesterday we got to explore plenty!

At the train station in Brisighella with our NZ pals (another group of 6 doing the same ride):

Here's a map of our ride (starting with the train ride from Brisighella to Borgo San Lorenzo — click to enlarge):

The train ride to Borgo San Lorenzo (through the Apenine mountains that divide Emiglia Romagna and Tuscany) was about an hour. We had four tickets…one for each of us, and one for each of our bikes. Taking the bike on the train felt a little wonky. The train doors open and there's the spot between the area where people sit (separated by doors), with steep stairs going down either side, and you just hoist your bike up and park it there, hoping it won't fall over when the train moves. Two of our other tour mates had their Eurobike bikes in there and we all just tried to arrange them so they wouldn't fall over and they wouldn't block the doors (the doors that were on all four sides!)

Shots from the train ride:

In Borgo San Lorenzo:

That's the only photo I took of riding through Borgo San Lorenzo. It was pretty, but we needed some espresso.

We knew were were going to have some climbs today and figured the fuel would do us good. Back on the road:

When you're leaving a town you get those signs (above) that have the name of the town with a red slash through it.

Alrighty, and now on to those climbs!!

We gave it a shot but after not too long we ended up walking the bikes up this 1.5km 13% grade (and even that was pretty tough!)

Water break next to the roadside shrine:

Oh yeah, here's a screen shot from my iPhone running Cyclemeter:

It kinda felt like straight up. After the 1.5km straight up, there was some downhill, and then another 3km or so of uphill, but not as steep as the first climb so we were able to actually stay on our bikes. All in all the climbing today was about 463 meters, or 1,519 feet. But take a look at that view from the top…Fiesole in the foreground, and Florence in the background. Nice!

Coming into Fiesole:

We stopped here for more espresso and some acqua frizzante (fizzy water, but you probably got that).

Oh, and the view was this:

We continued on a bit looking for our lunch spot and opted for this little sidewalk spot called Fiesolano:

We had some pizza and a glass of house vino rosso and more fizzy water, and then continued down the hill toward Florence.

This is an incredibly scenic ride, from Fiesole (or above it, really) down into Florence. Pictures do not even begin to capture how breathtaking it is to arrive in Florence via this route by bicycle.

Narrow road, with a traffic light at either end:

Separated bike lane. All of the parts of Italy we've seen so far are more bike-friendly than we'd imagined they would be. In busy areas though, there are bikes wheel-to-wheel chained to that fence on the right so that they stick a bit out into the right side and you have to ride on the left. Perhaps some better bike parking is in order?

We lost our sticker path for a while, but worked it out via our Cyclemeter map and Google maps and eventually found the stickers AND our hotel. We're at Hotel Grifone for our first night here and this is the view from our room:

See the Duomo, right between the tip tops of that tall tree! Neat!

Our room has giant, openable window:

And here's the view now, after my long long blog post:

Beautiful. Tomorrow we'll move over to the apartment we've rented for the rest of our stay in Florence. It's in the Oltrarno area (across the Arno river from the center of town and the Duomo, so a little quieter than the main tourist area). It should be lovely. We'll let you know!

Ravenna to Brisighella (Video)

Laura Domela — Fri, 16 May 2014 15:00:00 +0000

This was the fifth leg of a multi-day Eurobike tour from Venice to Florence – riding Bike Friday folding bikes. This leg (56 km) left Ravenna and went through farmland, vineyards, kiwi and cherry orchards, and small towns and villages on the way to beautiful Brisighella.

Ravenna to Brisighella (Ride Day 5)

Laura Domela — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:38:06 +0000

Well, we're in Florence now, so again I'm behind a day. First, I'll take care of yesterday, then I'll post about our ride today, cool? Cool.

After breakfast in the hotel, we left Ravenna and were treated to more back roads and great weather. We rode past cherry orchards, vineyards, kiwi orchards, corn fields…and more crops we couldn't identify.

Oh yeah, here's a map. See that last part there? Those are some hills!

And here are pics from the ride:

Eurobike stickers say "turn right."

But I kinda want to go left!

Once we got to Faenza, we stopped and had some lunch at a busy pizzeria just inside town. SUCH good pizza! We ordered two small pizzas — one tartufo (bufala, mushrooms, truffle oil) and an "Italia" special (bresaola, raddicchio, parmesan, bufala, tomatoes…not baked, more like a salad on top of a thin crust). Both were delicious!

Riding through Faenza:

We stopped for a quick caffè before heading on out of town:

Back on the road:

We arrived in Brisighella and checked into our hotel (Hotel La Meridiana). We took showers, did a little work, and then headed out (again on the bikes! crazy!) up the hilly roads into the town of Brisighella.

Brisighella is the smallest town we stayed in all week (about 7,700 residents). You can read some about the town here in this article we found online when we were doing some research.

Exploring Brisighella:

Brisighella is surrounded by (backed by?) three tall craggy chalk spires, topped with (1) the Sanctuary of Monticino (religious), (2) the 14th-century Castle Manfrediana (military), and (3) the 13th-century clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio (civic) that strikes the quarter hour all day long. You can see the clock tower in the two photos below:

The famous Via Degli Asini translates to "Street of the Asses", and is so named because donkeys once used it traveling to and from the chalk quarry up above.

The via is covered now, and houses business and apartments (that first open door was a dentist's office):

Via Degli Asini, from the street below:

We sat and had a glass of prosecco and people-watched for a bit. We also stopped in the tourism office and grabbed a map. The helpful woman inside told us all about the famous Brisighella olive oil (seriously, see same article referenced above re: olive oil), and then she led us down a few doors to a shop where we were greeted by Daniela. "Her English is very good, you can ask her anything" the tourist info woman told us, but then Daniela never spoke one word of English to us, which was fine…just funny in response to such an introduction. Daniela let us taste two different olive oils from Brisighella.

Pieve Tho was the first oil we tried, made from olives from several different Brisighella growing areas. (The three are Nostrana di Brisighella, Ghiacciola, and Orfana.)

The second oil we tasted was the Brisighello DOP (our favorite, and the one we bought):

"The trademark "Brisighello" is related to a specific region with peculiar features, different from the surrounding areas, and mainly from an unique variety of olive fruit, the "Nostrana of Brisighella".

The extra virgin olive oil "Brisighello" DOP can only be obtained by the above mentioned variety of fruit, and its percentage cannot be less than ninety percent. Small amounts of other fruits coming from local olive trees can also be added." (from Brisighella.org)

We also bought one jar of tartufata that we will probably eat while we're in our apartment in Florence over the next two weeks.

Our bikes and the street, taken from the Via Degli Asini (and that's the spot on the left where we hung out with our prosecco for an hour or so before dinner):

This was the view from our little prosecco spot, where we had a very nice dreadlocked server and got to listento a reggae soundtrack

We did a little research about where to have dinner and, well, that article I linked to above really convinced us to try La Cavallina.

We are so glad we did! We arrived early (7:30pm) and decided to sit outside. We had this view:

The owner came out and explained the whole menu to us slowly in Italian but with hand gestures (shellfish, this big, round…a scallop!) and a few English words. It was so charming. We ordered a bottle of a fantastic local wine he recommended, Iaia (so fantastic we bought another bottle to take with us on to Florence…also, it's biodynamically produced — bonus!):

The owner helped us decide on some dishes, telling us he had an extra antipasti not on the menu that he wanted us to order — a formaggio di capra (goat cheese) that he made himself (it was garnished with an olive relish, thin green beans, and shaved parmesan, and it was incredible!):

We also had a beef tartare with shaved truffles, salad, and toasted bread (battuta al coltello di razza Romagnola con tartufo di stagione e pane brioches)…

… a local pasta dish (passatelli asciutti su fonduta diu formaggio e tartufo), a veal dish, and a fish dish (filetto di orata in crosta di erbe aromatiche su crema di sedano rapa e tartar di olive) which was an herb-encrusted sea bream with a celery puree and an olive "salsa".

They brought us a "surprise" dessert, a light pannacotta with strawberries, and two glasses of grappa. Everything was incredible, but the special goat cheese dish was our declared winner.

We rode our bikes back to the hotel from the restaurant (9:30pm-ish) with our nice bright headlights and taillights, carrying in my handlebar bag (1) a bottle of Iaia Sangiovese from Brisighella, a bottle of Brisighella olive oil, and a jar of tartufata. The moon was bright and almost full, and the three craggy pillars were lit up and shining tall above the town.

Buonanotte Brisighella! Domani…Firenze!

Comacchio to Ravenna (Video)

Laura Domela — Thu, 15 May 2014 03:06:46 +0000

Kevin's video from yesterday's ride!

This was the fourth leg of a multi-day Eurobike tour from Venice to Florence – riding Bike Friday folding bikes. This leg (72 km) left Comacchio and went through the Parco Regionale del Delta del Po – Much of the trip was off pavement – gravel and dirt roads and some single-track. We saw wild flamingoes in the wildlife refuge, and people fishing with nets on the Reno river. (Here's a link that explains this ancient method of fishing called Trabucco.)

Comacchio Man

Laura Domela — Tue, 13 May 2014 19:53:16 +0000

I forgot to post this one in my last post, so I gave it a bit of special vintage treatment and now it gets its own post:

Adria to Comacchio by Bike (Ride Day 3)

Laura Domela — Tue, 13 May 2014 19:19:33 +0000

This morning after breakfast we unfolded the bikes and headed south toward Comacchio. Here's a map for you to get situated:

We went off-route today at Lido di Volano. We opted to head out to the beach to grab some lunch and ended up following what looked like a road on the map but in reality was mostly dirt and sand, and in some places, full on single track. So. Now we know what these bikes can do! It was totally fun riding along the coast of the Adriatic though. Our total mileage today was over 73 kilometers, and I think the official route was ~65 kilometers, so we got a nice bonus!

Anyway, here are the photos!

We strayed from the map/path and explored the town of Ariano Nel Polesine a bit and ended up stopping for espresso at this cafe:

Older Italian men mostly walk like this, with their hands clasped behind their backs. We were walking behind three in a row the other night but I didn't get a photo. I've started collecting them now though, so prepare to see more.

We made some Italian/English small talk with two older women in the cafe about what we were doing (bikes, Venice, Florence, etc.) and they were so sweet and one of them kept touching my arm saying "Bellisimo!! Bellisimo!" They were so pleased and excited about what we were doing. We returned to our table outside and one of them (likely in her late 70s) hopped on a small bike and waved "Ciao!" as she rode away. There are so many people who ride bikes in Italy. So. Many!

Somewhere along the way (not too far from Ariano Nel Polesine) there's this cemetery. I know, I'm a bit of a graveyard junkie, but it's super interesting to see the customs of other cultures when it comes to the deceased.

In this cemetery, it's all about the marble, the flowers, and the photos of the deceased person. OMG the photos!!

I know, I took a lot of these (more than I posted, even!), but aren't they cool??

Alright, back to the landscape.

Hang on a second. A truffle B&B? And why exactly are we not staying here?

Here's where we took our detour out to the beach at Lido di Volano. I think this whole area must be a very happenin' summer destination but now, in May, bicyling through it (and south of it) felt a whole lot like bicycling through post-zombie-apocalypse.

We came to this little spot with a big "Aperto" sign by the road (that means "open"), so we went to check it out.

Bike parking:

Great view:

We were hungry and ordered shrimp ravioli and some spaghetti with clams and both were delicious. We finished with another caffe (fuel!!) and hit the road again. Here's where we really deviated from the prescribed map. According to our GPS, it appeared we could continue down the Lido and eventually hook up with our route about 6km south of where we were. However, much of this 6km "road" was dirt and sand (so we sometimes needed to walk the bikes).

And for about 4km, it was single track (this is no wider than about a foot!):

But most of it was right along the Adriatic Sea and SO WORTH the detour. (I know, those clouds! We were hurrying!):

We finally hooked up with our road and rode the rest of the way into Commachio as prescribed. We found our hotel (Hotel Locanda La Comacina) and it was incredibly charming…right on the canal, beautiful rooms, great view, and a killer restaurant downstairs as a bonus! (We made a dinner reservation for 8pm.) When we checked in there was a man who took our bikes (for us!) to the locked bike parking garage around the corner from the hotel. Check him out, riding my bike, ghosting Kevin's:

We went up to our room on the second floor and our bags were already there and waiting for us. (This whole Eurobike tour thing is definitely something we'll do again!) And guess what? Free (and pretty fast) Wi-Fi…which also meant we needed to spend a couple hours working before we could go explore this new place. No worries. Here's the view from our room:

Out exploring Comacchio:

The men all seem to gather after work (?) and talk animatedly out in the street. I really want to know what they're talking about:

We sat right behind where the men are standing in the photo above and had an apertif while we people-watched. Chatty men, from the other side:

Another hands-clasped man:

Dinner downstairs was fabulous: a "gift from the chef" of razor clams…

…antipasti of octopus salad and branzino carpaccio…

…risotto for two with white fish and eel, and a mixed fish and shellfish plate to share. We couldn't resist the almond cannolo with ricotta cheese on a pear smoothie dessert and we're so glad we didn't. It was the best dessert by far that we've had in Italy.

Back in our room after dinner I stood at the window watching the town quiet down. It's midnight now, and we have another 65km day tomorrow, so I think I'll get this post published while the internet is good and then hit the sack.

Buonanotte!

Venice to Chioggia by Bike and Ferries (Ride Day 1)

Laura Domela — Sun, 11 May 2014 18:33:58 +0000

We got up this morning to meet our Eurobike guy Jozef (who, by the way, is completely adorable) downstairs for the initial meeting before he sent us all off into the Italian countryside to get lost have an incredible journey to Florence by bike. There were maybe a dozen people doing this tour, but the cool thing about this kind of tour is that you don't have to stick with the group. You can if you want to, but it's not required. (This is the tour we're doing, if you want to know more about it.)

Bikes on the ferry from Venice to Lido:

These bikes are a HUGE hit in Italy. Here I thought we'd fit right in, but they get so much attention — maybe even more than in the states, which is interesting. It makes sense though I guess…the way we've outfitted them feels very stylish, and therefore: Italian.

Passing the San Giorgio Maggiore:

While we were waiting for the Lido ferry we chatted with a couple of cool women from the UK (doing a different tour that loops back to Venice so they're only with us the first leg to Chioggia) and we rode with them part of the time on Lido. The four of us stopped at a cafe for espresso and a snack before catching the second ferry to the island of Pellestrina.

Bikes on Lido sea wall, with sailboats in the background:

On the ferry to Pellestrina:

(There was a guy on that bus there who got out and stood staring all over our bikes for most of the ride on this ferry.)

Pellestrina is 7 miles long and, well, amazing. Less words, more photos. This was our ride:

There are so many bicycles everywhere we've been so far, and the number of Dutch bikes was a bit of a surprise. It feels a lot like the way people use bikes for transport in Holland…mostly city bikes or Dutch bikes, no lycra or helmets, and so far a really good system of bike lanes (both on regular streets with cars as well as dedicated separate bike lanes). And I've seen no sign of those "crazy Italian drivers who have no regard for bikes" at all so far. Really. Okay, more photos:

We got to the end of Pellestrina and the ferry landing and I said to Kevin I kinda wanted to turn around and ride back through it all again. It was incredible — charming, colorful, smelled of the ocean and home cooking and fresh seafood and it was just the most perfect ride.

Ciao Pellestrina!

My bike on the vaporetto:

So, here we were, coming to our stop for the day, and we were both kind of disappointed to be finished. The riding felt like nothing. It wasn't that long a ride (about 35 kilometers or 22 miles) but the scenery and that "We're on our bikes! In Italy!" feeling was just so amazing and I could have done today twice. Good thing we have tomorrow!

On the ferry approaching Chioggia:

Chioggia. That white building central in the photo is our hotel for tonight: Hotel Grande Italia. It's lovely.

We were the first ones in our loose group to arrive in Chioggia, but we thought we might want to ride around more so we opted to stop for lunch before checking in. Right across the square from our hotel was the Ristorante Mano Amica and it was busy and looked great, so we parked our bikes and ourselves at a table outside and had some prosecco and some seafood.

View of our hotel from lunch:

For lunch we had an antipasto crudo sample plate — tuna, shrimp, oysters, clams, branzino, and a delicious cheese and tartar thing there garnished with dill, also known as "Degustazione di crudità (carpaccio di tonno, carpaccio di branzino, scampi e ostriche):

We had prawns and tuna as our mains and they were both fantastic.

Gamberi imperiali al radicchio di Chioggia con aceto balsamico:

Filetto di tonno (tuna over greens, and those are tomatoes and onions I think…it was so amazing):

Oh yeah, and some regionally local prosecco:

After lunch (which turned out to also be dinner) we checked into our hotel. Eurobike gets an assigned parking area for the bikes, but since we were the last ones to officially check in, the area was fairly full. We opted to fold our bikes into their carry bags and take them up to our room. It hadn't rained at all today, but it looked like it could and it would be a bummer to have wet bikes in the morning. (Good call in the end, because there was a crazy thunder and lightning storm this evening with some serious rain!)

After we checked in we did a little work and then headed out to explore. We walked all around Chioggia, and then headed across a few bridges over to Sottomarina.

Sottomarina:

Here's Chioggia:

Chioggia silhouettes:

Tomorrow morning we're headed to Adria! Here's hoping that storm was just passing through!