Lake Garda, Verona and Vicenza

Buongiorno from Vicenza.

Our biking routine is to get an early start for two reasons. First, it has been very hot so far on this trip with Europe experiencing another heat wave and the best cycling weather is the first few hours of the morning. By about 10 the heat starts to rise steadily. In addition, we are staying at hotels that host many cyclists and there is a bit of a traffic jam around the coffee machine about 8. Our approach is to quickly knock back a couple of macchiato (expresso with milk) to get the caffeine levels up, grab a small bite and race out. There seem to be lots of people biking this route with a number of companies. At one hotel, I counted 30 bikes locked up. So it’s a popular journey.
On Monday, we left Trento and the mountains started to recede as we cycled south and we had a lovely smooth ride, until a sharp rise over the pass towards the east. We were rewarded with stunning views as we crested the ridge over Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy and a big holiday resort area. The rest of the ride was downhill and we were enjoying an Aperol Spritz and sandwich by noon. Even had time for a gelato before catching the slow ferry from the resort town of Rive del Garda. For 4 hours we watched colourful towns, huge palazzos, resorts and castles go by on our ferry ride across the lake. It looks like the entire area caters to everything from families (camp grounds and amusement parks) to the very wealthy.- huge resorts. We were scoping out some places for my brother Mac and his wife Steph as they like to “do it up.” They would be spoiled for choice around Lake Garda. Our hotel was at the south end of the lake at Piescheria where we enjoyed polenta, fish, and gnocchi for dinner along with wines grown in the Lake Garda Region. We stumbled across a super restaurant that was tucked into the walls of the old city. Picture enclosed.
Yesterday we cycled a quick 35 km to Verona in time to do a walk around. I believe that I was pregnant with Jonathan the only other time I was in Verona and Jon is 40 now so I remember almost nothing . It’s a pretty busy place - like a second tier Italian destination after the big three - Rome, Venice and Florence. It was much busier that any other place we ‘ve been so far but even then the crowds were moderate and we had not problems getting a drink, lunch.
Verona has a large Roman amphitheatre built before the Rome coliseum and it is in better shape although not as large. Same sort of blood sports took place in it originally but it is now a functioning open-air theatre and I was super disappointed that nothing was playing that we could attend. What a fabulous venue for a concert.
The piazzas and small streets of Verona are beautiful and , according to Helen, the best preserved of any medieval town. The “main” castle - Castelvecchio - ” was build by the ruling family dynasty Scalger to protect themselves against all types of internal and external trouble-makers. It has all the good stuff like moats, towers and very fancy “crenellations” - word of the day that Helen taught me. Crenellations are those spiky things sticking up on a castle or fortress that protect the defenders from attacks. Helen was keen to see it more because it houses a museum and this was restored by a famous Italian architect . It was actually pretty amazing to see how functional the restorations were while looking seamless within the castle. The Domo or cathedral in Verona is also a real beauty, as they are. An Italian lady standing beside me cried out “ Bella, bella” and I replied with equal enthusiasm “ yes, bella, very beautiful”. She turned to me and said rather smugly “ Tutti Italia bella, bella “……can’t argue with that. For anyone who loves art, there is a Titian painting hanging in one of the small offshoot chapels.
Most popular stop in Verona is at Juliet’s house which is believed to be—— or marketed to be—— the house of the Capuleti family - of the unhappy lover from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet story. I bought a ticket to see inside, after much ribbing from Helen and Mike. But I was on a mission and left a note for Juliet to ask that true love comes to all the lovely ladies in my life who are looking for love. You know who you are…..Juliet will have to do the rest.

Today tested our biking metal. We rode 80 hot kms up and down . We did a long climb that was like riding to the top of Mount Doug. There was lots of traffic all day and when off road we were on bumpy tracks. We are in a busier, more industrial part of the country. The route tries to keep us away from heavy traffic but there were some real challenges. We did find shade in the school yard of what appeared to be a middle school and the kids came flooding out at lunchtime while we were sitting on a bench eating our bread and cheese. We all agreed that teenagers look, act and sound the same the world over - like dolphins!! Unfortunately, we got into Vicenza too late to see much of the city centre and the hotel isn’t in the nicest part of town. Rather less than salubrious. We hope to find some place nicer for dinner.

In answer to the 3 questions we’ve been asked:

1. How do we know where we are going? We have an excellent app called Ride with GPS that is light-years ahead of anything we have used before. Real time tracking of our route and cues when we’re off course. Only problem is that it occasionally looses the satellite - yesterday at a critical traffic circle - and the translation absolutely massacres the names of streets so it’s a crap shoot where to turn, at times. I’m still a map girl because it’s nice to get the big picture, but the app has been very good in the cities.

2. How do you do your laundry?. Well, we rinse stuff out at night and if you look at the bike pics carefully you’ll see things hanging off the back. Sometimes this system fails and today Helen left a pair of socks somewhere between Verona and Vicenza. Fortunately, we passed a town with a market in progress and Helen now has enough socks for the next 10 years.

3. Why aren’t you people losing weight? … Well no one really asked that that but I know you were thinking it. I refer you to earlier blogs and food pictures Did Stanley Tucci actually eat any of that food? In fairness, it’s not just a biking holiday.

The scenery has changed and we are now cycling through olive groves, corn fields and lots of vineyards still. The mountains are gone but there are still lots of hills. We went through Soave - heart of some of the white wines that we drink at home. For the wine lovers, we were not up to having a bottle of Amarone last night even though we were in the right area. It’s a bit heavy. But we did enjoy the local Valpolicella which is actually the name of the wine district and not a particular wine So our wine was a blend of the local grapes and very fresh and tasty. There is wine on tap at the local bars and we often see the men sitting outside sipping wine at 10 in the morning. They are better men than me but then, they don’t have to cycle in a straight line.
Tomorrow we head to Padua and then onto Venice.

More to follow from Venice, thanks for all of your notes.
Bye for now,
Love Heather/ Mom/ Grandma xxRead more