Allora! Hiking and biking in Italy - part 1, Venice

Allora: often used at the beginning of a sentence in order to begin a speech, because it helps us to get more time to think better about what to say! https://learnamo.com/en/allora-all-meanings-and-uses-in-italian/

View from our room in Hotel Marte

It’s tough to take original pictures in a place as iconic as Italy. We’ve watched James Bond and Indiana Jones speed through the Venetian canals. The old cathedrals of rural Italy decorate spaghetti sauce jars. And the iconic villages of the Cinque Terre are the setting for the latest Disney animated feature.

To see Italy today is to see the Italy of your imagination - but coated with tourists.

San Marco Piazza in the early morning

My friend Heidi and I are back from a two-week sojourn that took us from Venice to Mantua to Cinque Terre, exploring by bike and by hiking boot this ancient land. The area became my vacation destination of choice after two boat-bike guides in the Netherlands said the boat-bike trip out of Venice was their favorite. This post and the two following it will be my way of helping me to remember a few details from the trip and share some of my favorite pictures.

A view from the top of the German market

June, I knew, was not the ideal time to go. Venice is rated as one of the top tourist destinations in the world and the pandemic created a backlog of travel desires this year. But it was the time both Heidi and I could go and when the boat-bike company had tour openings. So I was prepared for the crush of tourists, high prices, and crowded planes and trains. I was not surprised - but all went well.

Seagulls rule everywhere

Our plane landed on time about noon at the Marco Polo airport and we took a waterbus from the airport to a stop on the main island of Venice (the one shaped like a fish and intersected by the Grand Canal). From the stop it was a 10 minute walk along a canal and over a bridge to our hotel.

Italian food was not hard to find.

We spent that afternoon getting checked into the Hotel Marte, located about a 30 minute walk to the Piazza San Marco, center of the town. The hotel was more expensive than I usually like to pay, but I wanted a room that overlooked a canal. Hey, just how many times in one’s life does stay in Venice? With a print map supplied by a friendly desk clerk, Rick Steve’s book on the town, and GoogleMaps on phones with local SIM cards, off we went…

All commerce is by boat or pushcart - no cars, no bikes

The next three days we basically spent following Steves's recommended walking tours. Early mornings (before 8am) were our favorite times to explore - cooler temps and few tourists. We poked our noses in churches and cathedrals, shops, and visited the Peggy Guggenheim Modern Art Museum. We did not get inside Saint Mark's Basilica or the Doge's Palace - the lines were incredibly long.  But we did take the obligatory gondola ride, sitting in the “love seat” while being poled through small canals that, if dry, would be called alleys. Sort of hokey, but fun too.

Gondolas are ubiquitous

The giant cruise ships that carry thousands of passengers have been banned from docking on the main island of Venice. How the place would have ever handled a few thousand more tourists, I can’t imagine. The place during late morning and afternoon was still packed. Lots of gelato being sold and huge numbers of souvenir shops, all seeming to carry the same fridge magnets. There were some very cool mask shops, however.

Rialto Bridge and waterbus

The old city is comprised of alleys and GoogleMaps seemed to know and use them all extensively. Between the alleys, canal crossings, and deadends, I don’t know how anyone ever found their way around before smart phones. Some larger streets had directions to major landmarks painted on building walls at intersections, but I learned graffiti artists love to change the direction of the arrows. Pigeons and seagulls were everywhere, with seagulls often peering in windows and doorways and perching atop statues, and pigeons hopping beneath cafe tables waiting for crumbs. Probably not real sanitary, but kind of charming.

 

Gondola ride

I don’t know if our time in Venice was any better or worse than the average traveler’s, but it was pleasant. Food was priced about the same as in the US and there always seemed to be tables at the small cafes where we dined. (We eat early.) On Saturday, we packed our bags and made our way to the landing area on the nearby Giudecca Island for the small cruise ship that would be our home for the next week.

A maze of canals

Many more photos here:

• Venice https://dougj.smugmug.com/Travel/2023/Venice-/
• Bike trip https://dougj.smugmug.com/Travel/2023/Boat-bike-Italy/
• Cinque Terre https://dougj.smugmug.com/Travel/2023/Cinque-Terre/

Off to Italy to bike

I suspect there are as many reasons for traveling as there are travelers. Adventure, culture, relaxation, food, exercise, scenery…  People who travel of their own free will may so love their own idea of a great trip that they may become blind-sided to the joys others experience when away from home.

As readers of this blog know, I do love to travel - and for all the reasons stated above. What I found a number of years ago is that there is one kind of travel which manages to incorporate many of them - boat/bike trips.

The concept of a boat/bike trip is simple. One stays aboard a small cruise ship that usually travels a river or other inland waterway. Small cabins, well-prepared meals, comfortable lounges, and top deck viewing areas are standard. But as the name suggests, the boats also carry bicycles, either cruise company or rentals or brought aboard by the passengers, which are ridden on prescribed routes during the day.

While the bikers bike, following either a human guide, provided maps, or GPS programs, the ship sails to the next embarkation point. Biking usually lasts from early morning to mid-afternoon with stops during the day for eating and visiting places of interest. On the tours I have taken, the daily mileage usually runs between 25 and 35 miles, with some days having a choice of longer and shorter route options. Should a person not feel like biking, they may stay on board and just enjoy the scenery. 

I love relaxing on board. I don’t have to change hotel rooms, find new restaurants, or locate guides. I don’t have to do a tremendous amount of trip preparation. The other bikers aboard have always been a pleasant, quite international, bunch. I get exercise every day, even when riding an ebike.

But perhaps most of all, I love seeing the country in slow motion. The back roads. The small towns. Everyday people going about  their everyday work. Small museums and coffee shops. The air comes unfiltered; the sun and rain unavoidable. The cows moo and the birds tweet, just for me. 

I have certainly enjoyed the majority of my biking experiences - from week-long rides in Wisconsin, Missouri, and Minnesota to inn-to-inn trips in Ireland, Provence, and Cambodia. But biking from a boat is very special.

My boat/bike trip in Italy starts this Saturday. I am excited. I hope it falls somewhere in the middle of the list below before I am no longer able to pedal! I still have a lot of places to see from a bike seat and a ship’ deck.

2017 - Prague up Elbe River (SE Tours)

2019 - Northern Holland (Boat Bike Tours)

2021 - Danube, Passau to Budapest (SE Tours)

2022 - Bruge to Amsterdam (Boat Bike Tours)

2023 - Venice to Mantua (Boat Bike Tours)

Bicycles and the Idaho stop

…“bicyclists approaching a four-way stop intersection can treat their stop sign as a yield sign, scan for other vehicles while slowing down and then ride through if clear” (“Stop sign rules relaxed for bicyclists,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 29)

A bit of controversy has sprung up over a small bill passed this legislative session here in Minnesota. Bicyclists may now legally perform an “Idaho stop” at intersections, as described above.

I am not sure what to think of this law.  And I have been riding a bike for many, many years.

One rationale for the law as passed is that it simply legalizes what is already a common practice by many, if not most, cyclists - myself included. Given the amount of energy it takes to get a bike up to speed, one hates to toss it away by braking, let alone coming to a complete stop. So gliding through an otherwise unoccupied intersection that has stop signs seems to be common sense.

Sometimes common sense is a better guide to behavior than legality. One rule I follow religiously while biking on roads and streets I share with motor vehicles is that a car or truck will do me more damage than I will do to it if we collide. Therefore, I always yield when in any encounter - even if I technically have the right of way. I doubt St Peter at the Pearly Gates would show much sympathy for bikers who complain, “But I had the right of way!” 

I never give any driver the benefit of the doubt. Bikers are hard to see. Not every driver knows or understands laws and cycling. I stay very, very alert when there is any vehicular activity at all. That just opened driver’s side door can take out a biker pretty fast if the biker does not give enough space between their path and parked cars too.

So, I don’t know just how much impact the new “Idaho stop” law will actually have. I don’t know any bicyclist who has been given a ticket for running a stop sign. I can’t think of any lawsuits that might gain traction from having such a law on the books. Perhaps it was simply a symbolic victory for the powerful bicyclist lobby in the state.

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Speaking of common sense, I would highly recommend reading Grant Petersen’s little book Just Ride. You won’t regret it. I may re-read it before my bicycling trip in Italy starts next week!

Oh, I’ve been collecting these since about 2006…

Some Lessons Learned from Bicycling

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. H.G. Wells

1. Balance is a good thing.
2. It's usually uphill and against the wind. (Murphy's Law of Bicycling)
3. Most big hills that look impossible are usually a series of small hills that are possible.
4. I've never met a hill I couldn't walk up.
5. It's better to shift to a lower gear than to stop altogether.
6. Sometimes it's nice to be able to have equipment to blame things on.
7. You really can't make your own weather.
8. Coasting feels good, but you don't get much exercise doing it.
9. A beer at the end of a long day of riding tastes better than a beer when just sitting around (or at breakfast, I'm guessing).
10. Don't drink at lunch time and expect to enjoy the afternoon.
11. Bike helmets are a sure sign that natural selection is still a force of nature.
12. The few minutes putting air in your tires at the beginning of the day is time well spent.
13. There will always be riders who are faster than you and riders who are slower than you.
14. Watching old people zip by you should be encouraging, not discouraging.
15. Too often we quit because our spirit fails, not our legs or lungs.
16. Spouses (or entire families) who dress alike should not expect the rest of us to consider them normal.
17. Too much padding between you and a bike seat is impossible.
18. The happiest people are the ones who consider life a ride, not a race.
19. The more expensive the bike and clothing, the higher the expectations others have of your performance.
20. The 500 calories burnt exercising do not compensate for the 2000 calories from beer drunk celebrating your accomplishment.
21. Everyone can look buxom on a bicycle - even guys.
22. You always feel the headwind, but never the tailwind. But it's there.
23. Most forms of travel involve some degree of discomfort. But keep moving anyway.
24. Cows always have the right of way.
25. You eventually dry out even after the biggest downpour.
26. Don't text and bike.
27. Always be on the look out for idiots. (See number 26.)
28. Be grateful for the ability to create sore muscles.
29. New places look better from a bicycle seat than from the window of a tour bus.
30. The office will do just fine without you while you are on your bike.

And your observations, fellow bicyclists?