Crespino > Lido 80km and a day in Venice

[Originally posted Aug 13, 2014]

Writing from the second story balcony at the Hotel Atlanta Augustus, in Lido, Veneto, Italy. 

Hotel Atlanta Augustus - first hotel of the trip.

Spent the day in Venice.  What can be said about Venice?  It is the City of Love.  A truly incredible place.

The Grand Canal.

We woke up on the banks of the Po early.  Sometime before 6am.  We got moving quickly to beat the afternoon heat.  It’s terrible out there between the hours of 11am and 6pm.  Just terrible.  The morning ride was lovely (after we removed the morning dew from everything that was exposed to the air).  It had Mississippi Delta written all over it.

The levee of the Po.

Every time I visit a new place it seems as though the way my brain makes sense of the new information (people, scenery, culture, climate etc.) is to compare it to places I’ve previously been.  And so as we rode down the levee of the Po River headed north to Venezia (read: Venice) all I could think of was: damn, we sure traveled far to see the Mississippi Delta.  Crops everywhere, flat as can be, hot and slightly muggy.  It reminded me of the wonderful times I spent in Lake Village, AR with Teach For America.  And so as we got closer to Venice I thought to myself, hmm, maybe Venice will be like New Orleans.

We rolled into the small town of Cavarzere and grabbed some carbs for the road.  It was only another hour or so to Chioggia, where we would hopefully take a ferry to Venice, but since breakfast was nothing more than a yogurt and a handful of granola the hunger pangs were starting to kick in.  As we started back down the road, a typical squeeze of the right brake lever (and rear brake) created an awful sound somewhere between fingernails on a chalkboard and scratchy metal.  WTF was my instant outburst.  It was just an hour or so earlier when I told Katy, you know what, we’ve been out for a while now and no major setbacks.  But this wretched sound threatened catastrophic delay.  We jumped off the bike and looked for an alley way.  The sun was already high in the sky and shade was hard to come by.  As I walked the bike forward the awful sound returned, this time without the pull of the brake, and again “oh damn” came to the forefront of my mind.  I instructed (or yelled - sometimes I have a short temper) to Katy to take the bags off the bike so I could carry it to some shade to begin the diagnosis and treatment.  A simple check of the rear disc brake (Avid BB7s) showed that the brake pad and accompanying spring were the culprit.  With the turn of the rotor on the rear wheel the brakes let out a shrieking yell.  (At this point I can only imagine Katy thinking to herself, oh no, we are 1/2 a day from Venice but now I am stranded in “no man’s land” Po River Valley with this terrible heat.  We are going to be stuck here for a while, cause I’m sure there isn’t a bike shop anywhere nearby.  And Clayton has tried to fix things on this bike before, but he can never get it done correctly the first time, I hope this doesn’t put him in a bad mood for the next day or so).

Brake trouble.

But, never fear, good luck is here.  I just happened (or maybe it was good planning, you choose) to have an extra spare set of brake pads in my collection of “things we might need”.  After a quick loosening of the brake cable, removal of the rear brake, replacement of the brake pad, reassembly and a quick test ride, we were back on the road.  As I returned from the test ride, Katy said (in that look of, uh oh, now what’s wrong) did you fix it?  Yep, all better, let’s go.  And then Katy turned into a statue.  Are you serious?  I am so proud of you.  I thought that for sure this would be that setback you said we hadn’t had yet.

We got to Venice from what you could call “the back door”.  First a ferry from Chioggia to Pellestrina, then a bike ride down a long strip of land.  Then another Ferry from Pellestrina to Lido.  And another bike ride down a rather long skinny island (all of this is worth looking at on Google Maps). 

The end of the earth, Pallestrina, Veneto.

Adriatic Sea - meet you here in a month and a day Jessica and Charlie.

Then we just had one ferry left and we’d be in Venice.  But this time a rather upset lady behind a ticket counter foiled our plans.  “You can’t take a bike to Venice, no bikes in Venice”.  I know, but the guy who sold us this ticket said we could go to Venice.  “You can’t take a bike to Venice, no bikes in Venice”.  I understand, but if we . . . “You can’t take a bike to Venice, no bikes in Venice”.  So, what you are saying to me is that we can’t take a bike into Venice (I was just checking to see if she was human or was set on autopilot).  “You can’t take a bike to Venice, no bikes in Venice”.  So I turned to Katy and said, well we aren’t going to make any progress here.  

And so then we did the impossible - checked into a hotel on the small island of Lido (where bicycles are more prevalent than cars), just east of Venice in the Adriatic Sea.  Our first stay in a hotel since we set off on July 1st. 

Wow, hotel life.  You are really something.  A shower all to myself (it was during my shower when I realized my only lasting scars from camping on the Po River - two mosquito bites on my hands, one on the right palm and the other on the medial aspect of the hand just below the pinky finger.  Nothing is worse than a mosquito bite on the hand, back in Jamaica I would get them by the dozens and they were just the absolute worst, cause the trick to a mosquito bite is don’t touch it and you will forget about it, but when they are on your hand it’s hard to not touch it cause your hand does the touching), a full sized towel, a mattress, don’t even get me started on how much I love this air conditioning.  I’m a bit nervous at the thought of entering the “bike touring world” tomorrow and leaving behind these wonderful comforts.  (You might ask why no WarmShowers, and the truth is, it seems that everyone we have emailed as of late is on vacation, so kind of a bad string of luck, but we are crossing our fingers for the next couple nights).

And so we spent all of today in Venice (yes, we thought two nights in the hotel would be nice).  Such an incredible place: the canals, the gondolas, the incredible architecture right on the water, the great food (special thanks to Duffy and Yanzi for a trip to dinner at Trattoria alla Madonna - I had some delicious Sole and Katy had spaghetti with black squid - both delicious) and the endless gelato (we have decided that we should always stop when we see gelato, and that we will alternate who gets to choose flavors - it’s a good system).

Dinner, thank you Duffy and Yanzi.

Venice.

Venice

One large gelato please.

Besides, Katy’s family has this crazy thing with ice cream.  One family vacation through Canada included stopping at every Dairy Queen they saw—little did they know there were almost two per town. 

Tomorrow back on the road.  Headed northwest towards Slovenia and through the Julian Alps with an eventual destination in Vienna in a week or more.  It’s good to be on the road.