Comacchio – 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!

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.)

Working Our Way to Ravenna (Ride Day 4)

Laura Domela — Wed, 14 May 2014 17:59:41 +0000

We were the last ones to leave the hotel in Comacchio (our favorite so far) this morning and we were the first ones to arrive in Ravenna. We know, it's not The Amazing Race or anything, but still…we rocked it today. We rode 72 kilometers — about 45 miles, and a lot of those miles were on pretty tough dirt and gravel roads or paths — on Bike Friday folding bikes, from Comacchio to Ravenna. Also, we stayed up until 1am last night working in our hotel room in Comacchio, then got up at 7am and did some more work before lugging our luggage downtairs and grabbing a quick breakfast and heading out on the bikes. Today's map:

This is the first time in over 10 years we've been able to work this little while traveling, thanks to our awesome team who is keeping the company running smoothly while we're in Italy. One of the big compromises we made in starting a company was that we are always working. In the 10.5 years since we started our company we have probably never had a single day completely "off" (including weekend days). It seems there's always some business to tend to, and usually several hours worth. While the kind of business we decided to start has been awesome in allowing us the freedom to travel, that's come at the price of never truly being "on vacation".

Okay, on to today's ride, which took us through the Parco Regionale del Delta del Po where there are hundreds of flamingoes! In the wild!

4 or so km of this two-rut dirt road…with many many sticker bushes pushing into your rut:

All those white dots out there (plus a zillion more out of frame)? Flamingoes. See, Airstream peeps…we're thinking about you!

More dirt and gravel:

Check out all these fishing cabins and shacks along the Reno River. There's a cool net system that is lowered down into the river where it sits for a bit, then is raised back up to check for fish. We stopped here for about 15 minutes to watch a fishing operation and almost every time they pulled the net up there were fish!

One of the more "fishing shack" operations. There's usually a metal frame over the dock and a tarp rolled up there at the front. If there are people there fishing, the tarp is unrolled and layed out and tied over the frame to create a shady place to hang out. I could see sitting here drinking beer, raising and lowering this net all day, collecting dinner. It's really quite zen to watch, even when you're not the getter of the fish!

River emptying out into the Adriatic Sea:

Another forested dirt path along the sea:

Taking the ferry across to the port of Ravenna…

…where we had to wait for an enormous ship:

Bikes, on another ferry (2 euros):

Arriving in Ravenna, at Piazza del Popolo. (That column, one of two in the piazza, was built in 1483):

Base of a column:

Our hotel is just down this street on the left, the Hotel Centrale Byron:

Kinda "meh" compared to last night's hotel, but what a fantastic location!

We checked in and parked our bikes in the special Eurobike spot, rested a bit (all that off road riding today was hard after another 73km ride yesterday), grabbed some gelato (because OMG we missed a day yesterday), and then did some more work back at the hotel for a few hours before heading out for dinner and some wandering.

Dinner was at the Ristorante Bella Venezia just a couple doors down and it was really really good. We had the best spaghetti carbonara ever, gnochetti, and we shared one of today's specials: a veal dish topped with prosciutto, zucchni, and a white sauce with cheese…it was delicious. We ordered a bottle of local Sangiovese and it was great as well. After dinner we walked around a bit and we're going to hit the hay a little earlier tonight than last night.

Hotel Centrale Byron at night:

Tomorrow: Brisighella!

Oh yeah, and while we were out walking around we saw one of the Eurobike stickers that we've been following this whole trip, so now we know which way to head outta town in the morning! They look like this, and they're on sign posts all along the entire route from Venice to Florence. Makes it a bit like a big puzzle/video game/scavenger hunt. This one says, "Go straight!":

Adria to Comacchio (Video)

Laura Domela — Wed, 14 May 2014 03:52:00 +0000

This was our third leg of a multi-day Eurobike tour from Venice to Florence. This leg (73 km) left Adria and went across the Po river delta along the Adriatic coast – through several villages – ending up in Comacchio. We saw what appeared to be an alternate route down the beach on the GPS and went off the published course. As a reward, we found ourselves doing about 4 km of sandy single track along the shore. Heh. The bikes performed well.

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!