We left Venice a little before 6 this morning and escaped south through the industrial heart of the city, thankfully very quiet at that hour on a Sunday morning. Our route took us though the picturesque Italian countryside inland from the coast.
After the first puncture of the tour, a quick stop for breakfast after 40 miles where much to the annoyance of the proprietor's wife, our host used the last of their bread to make us the largest paninis we'd ever seen in our lives, we headed on into an agricultural region around Codigoro, miles of corn and fields of asparagus as far as the eye could see. As we headed further south we cycled through a wetland area called Valli di Comacchio or "The fish basins of Comacchio". It was therefore no surprise to see the fishermen out in force under the watchful eyes of flocks of herons.
Mid afternoon saw us getting into the Apennines, what had been a fairly flat run up until then suddenly turned into some seriously hilly terrain with some 25% climbs (one in four) which were almost impossible to get up on a bike. We had a couple of problems with the route, the route planning software we used seemed to believe road bikes could negotiate dirt tracks and took us off down ever narrowing roads until eventually we got to a farm yard where the farmer took a long look at us, our bikes threw his eyes up to heaven and walked away. Correcting this error put on several additional miles. Anyway, here we are in this wonderful old medieval fortified town with a quite breathtaking view of the Italian countryside from my hotel bedroom window. More tomorrow..
Today's stats
Miles 161
Climb 4,400 feet
Calories burned 7100
Chris turned his peddles 52,000 times!
Here's a link to the GPX file of the day's planned route
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