Biking along the Po from Milano to Venezia was something that Scott and I dreamed about for about 15 years. The girls were old enough and it was our 25th wedding anniversary.
Biking from Milan to Venice: Many gifts
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Tag Archives: Italy2015
Milan to Venice Ride Stats
Here’s a summary of our whole ride from Milan to Venice. The GPX data on all of the rides, and a higher resolution map, are available here. We didn’t follow these routes exactly but it’s pretty close.
Milan, Pavia, Piacenza, Cremona, Casalmaggiore, Mantova, Ostiglia, Ferrara, Chioggia, Venice
Total distance for the routes is 323.6 miles (including ferries between Chioggia and Venice). However, with all of our minor route changes, Angie tells me that according to her GPS watch we actually rode about 361 miles!
Venice by Bike
Victory: getting our bikes from Lido to Venice. It turns out there is an unwritten rule that Venice water buses (shown below) do not carry bikes. This makes sense because 1) It is not allowed to ride a bike in Venice and 2) The water buses are always crowded. Bear in mind that we were taking two tandems into Venice, with a loaded trailer (!). Here was our techniqe: Run down to the dock and ask the captain “Due bike abordo?” in your best bad Italian. He says ok, but only for one stop (the first stop on Venice). Then you run back and get the family with two cute bambinis pushing the gigantic tandems and trailer. He freaks out a little, then says “This is a gift to you”. He was right.
A Venetian vaporetto, or water bus
Venice finale
In contrast to the previous 11 days, we spent Saturday among crowds of tourists in Venice on Saturday. Venice was certainly beautiful, and the high point of our day was visiting the Basilica de San Marco, which has a museum where most churches have choir lofts, and that museum provided rooftop access for a unique view of the piazza. I would visit more churches if the let you walk out on the roof.
Hey Guys it’s Frankie!
Hey guys! This is Frankie, and I'll be posting every Friday! Right now we're in Venice, Italy! It's super awesome, but it's against the law to ride bikes😞🚴. I miss ChoCho and Chile. But we will see them in a few days!!! My 3 favorite things about Italy are…
- The gelato
- The dogs (there's a lot!)
- The Po river! (Funny name,
and comment if you like gelato!!!
How far we’ve gone
224.9 miles, not including wrong turns, getting to hotels, stopping for lunch. Angie says including all those things it’s 254 miles.
Milan, Pavia, Piacenza, Cremona, Casalmaggiore, Mantova, Ostiglia, Ferrara
Tomorrow we attempt our longest ride yet, 60 miles to Chioggia. We might end up on the train, but hopefully not. From there it’s a breezy 11 mile victory lap up the barrier islands to Venice, and we’re done!
What we have learned
We’ve all learned something on our trip (so far):
Frankie: My favorite gelato flavor is tiramisu.
Barbara: Pizza and pasta in Italy are much better than in the USA.
Angie: On tandems, the bike shirt pockets of the front rider mostly benefit the back rider.
Scott: “Ponte Interrato” means “Bridge out”.
Oh Noes!
Riding to Mantova
Biking along the Po River brings many surprises! The bridges that cross the Po River and its tributaries are few and far between. So when a bridge is out (“ponte interrotto”) and it’s not marked on the google maps then the more leisurely 30 miles turns into almost 50. Thanks to Scott for his excellent navigation in finding us a new route. You can see our route here.
Add some rain, lightning, wind and mud and this is really an adventure. But what really made my day was the beautiful bouquet of flowers the girls and Scott put on my pack plus the squash belly buttons we had at a trattoria the very small town of Bocca Bassa (maybe 4 streets at the most).
#slowtravelItaly #bikingItaly
Cremona
This is in front of the airbnb we stayed at in Cremona. The hosts were wonderful. Mama brought the girls a fresh baked pizza in the afternoon and Papa insisted we take on of his bunjee cords to keep the bike pack on tighter. We felt right at home. They used their iPad and we used our phones on google translator to communicate.
Milan on Foot
Today we rested up and explored Milan a little. Checked out the Castello Sfozesco, where they had a very cool Da Vinci ceiling. After a very nice lunch at Cuocona we walked over to Basilica Di Santa Maria Della Grazie to see if there were any cancellations for the Last Supper (ha ha!) and then checked out Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia.
Mostly, though, we ate and walked around. More pics here. Tomorrow, the bikes!