23/11/24
It was a bright and sunny Saturday when we left Chioggia. Often we lose track of and pay little attention to what day it is, especially now we’re in Italy where the shops are always open. We left the Venetian Lagoon behind and began heading south towards the gigantic Po river delta, the river is the longest in Italy.
As can be expected from extremely flat places, which we are very familiar with coming from the Fens in East Anglia, is that they can somewhat uninspiring. Agriculture tends to dominate such areas and so the land is basically a desert. Field after field, the narrow roads decimated by heavy traffic and little cover from the wind. We felt right at home.
The biggest difference between home and here was the size of the rivers. Our route was constricted by the crossing of the large rivers that blocked our path and bridges could be few and far between. When they did exist, they were often busy roads with little provision for cycles, despite being a supposed official cycle route.
We crossed the river Adige, using the SS309 for the second time – SS means Strada Statale and for us means ‘hell no’. We noticed on the map that there was an interesting path through the water. A narrow strip that could be what we had imagined the day before on Pellestrina.
As we got to the start of the road, we found a sign advertising a seasonal only ferry, of course. We were confused as the route seemed to seamlessly cross the water and lead to the other side. We accosted some other cyclists, one of whom had some English, and discovered that there was a channel that we’d need to cross, or deal with a fast road. When one of them told us there were flamingos, we had no choice but to continue.
We made haste, barrelling down the unique road that seemingly traversed the water but was actually a result of Roman, or possibly Etruscan, fishing ‘valleys’. They are an extension of the salt waters, allowing it to mix with fresh water and creating ideal fish breeding conditions. It was an interesting landscape at last, and we soon made to a church where a man told us the ‘fenicotteri’ were two or three kilometres further. We somewhat reluctantly continued, nervous about the extent of this out and back detour. We weren’t sure whether these were conventional flamingos or not, and upon spotting some white birds that resembled them we had lunch nearby.
Only after we carried on, consigning our future selves to deal with crossing that ominous fast road, did we spot the pink flock of birds that were actually flamingos! It was a wonderful surprise as we never thought they lived so far north.
We were now headed to the fast road, which wasn’t as bad as we thought. However, we were heading back west on a sort of detour. This route was far from heading straight south as we originally anticipated, and worse it was on tiresomely straight and wind stricken roads. At the point we were to turn back to the sea was a road that seemed to be closed to traffic and an industrial wasteland. It was a demoralising place to be. As we headed back east we were also suddenly on a very difficult gravel track that was curiously hard to cycle on.
It was only now we realised that to reach our chosen destination we would indeed be cycling into the evening and maybe the dark. We were now on the bank of the river, fortunately a distinct cycle path away from the fast road, but miles upon miles ahead of us, next to the ever enlarging River Po, or one of its many channels that led to the sea anyway.
We hadn’t any dinner at this point and though we initially planned to head to the Eurospin, a supermarket that we thought looked novel, and also cheap, we found a little village store not too far away. It looked closed but a push on the door revealed a dingy store and the bell prompted a woman to come out from the back to investigate. She had a selection of food and importantly, bread. We bought all the bread she had left, some jam and even vegan Nutella. Expensive, but we felt we’d earned it, kind of. It’s mostly palm oil and sugar, but the secret ingredient seems to be ceci (chickpeas).
Though surprised at first the shopkeeper came towards the door as we left, curious about where we were sleeping and if we were camping given it was ‘so cold’. Everyone in these parts think it’s freezing but it was about 8C, so not cold at all. But we weren’t camping and were headed instead to a B&B. It was at least 10 miles away though.
We had to cross another bridge to continue, this time demanding a several kilometre loop. It’s visible on the map above it was so big. It feels demoralising if you cycle for 15 minutes just to be 20m higher than you were before. We were buoyed by the idea of food and shelter though and on the other side we were fortunate to have more cycle path on the bank. The road below looked a bit busy for us. It was on the bank that Frankie suddenly shouted out that she could see a beaver! Flamingos and beavers in the same day, what luck. The beaver seemed to be unperturbed as we snuck closer, eventually scampering down the bank.
The Sun had completely set now, and disappointingly our bank path ended and we were on the road. Lights on and cautiously vigilant for the Italian style of close passing even if the other side of the road is completely empty. We had only one more bridge to cross, arriving at the bright red Lanterna guest house at what felt like 8pm but was in fact only 5:30pm.
The room was luxurious and very comfortable. We stashed our bikes in the reception, the poor translation by Airbnb being a ‘box’ when we’d asked earlier. We had the bread dipped in passata with olives and ceci, leftover from the night before. We even had a bag of cashew nooch (nutritional yeast) we’d been carrying since the UK. The usual dessert. We got a message from the host telling us that the last message didn’t come through and our bikes should go in the shed, so we nipped down to move them. We were exhausted, but we’d seen flamingos and beavers!
Surly They Won't Make It 