The Rainbow Road to Ravenna

Verona was a nice break from bicycling and sweating in the sun. Some of the things we saw were: Juliet's house(not the real one according to rick), the Scala family tombs and palace, as well as a whale rib bone hanging from an arch that fell on dino(the legend is that if someone who has never told a lie walks under it it will fall).

Here is a little taste of verona for you shakespearian officianados out there.

The rib bone that fell on Dino.

Here is the wall of Juliet's house.

Some people just don't have any respect for history.

AnneMarie being inappropriate with a statue of Juliet. I told her not to do it, but she wouldn't listen.

Dino making himself comfortable.

Yesterday we decided to make up for lost time from the first day and from our side trip to Verona and bike from Garda Lake to Ferrarra. The lady at our 4 star camping resort couldnt understand why we were leaving the lake to go to the city. "Ferrarra? Why!?"We couldnt say, but we left anyways, around 7 in the morning. We rode along the southern part of the lake for awhile and then headed south at Pesciara. There is a bicycle path along the River Po and we followed that to Mantova. It is part of a bicycle path connecting all of Europe, the Eurovelo. It took us by castels and old towns with men fishing all along the way. There were several bicyclists, and some even with bags bigger than ours! The weather was nice and cool and we arrived in Mantova around noon. We had lunch at a cafe outside the Pallazo Gonzaga, had gelato, and then were back on the road.

It took us forever to find the Eurovelo connecting Mantova to Ferrara. It felt like we were riding in circles looking for it and when we finally found it (way out of town next to abandoned buildings) It was a rocky road. We were sweating so much we couldnt put sunscreen on it was sooooo hot. We road the eurovelo for a long time. so long it felt like the rainbow road from mario cart. we biked and biked, determined to make it to ferrara. The sun went down, we had only eaten a little trail mix since lunch. We were covered in sweat, dust, and dead bugs. We had had enough when it was getting hard to see and it just felt like bugs were flying into your face. We decided to camp along the eurovelo and dino found a wonderful campsite in a bird sanctuary. We had covered 105 miles, the furthest either of us had ever rode in one day.

This morning we woke up early and had a big breakfast in Ferrara. We then rode to Ravenna, it was another long day with tempertures up to 36 °C!!. On the way we had an interesting encounter with an italian bicyclist. First he rode up next to us and asked where we were going. He spoke English which was nice but he kept riding along side of us and not saying much. I told him we had been at Garda lake the day before and we wanted to make it to Sicily. Then he started laughing really loud, made a drinking hand gesture, and then left us in his dust.


We finally made it to a hostel rick steves suggested. We will stay here for two nights so we can see famous byzantine mosaics and we are still trying to decide what to do next.