Coast to Coast: Cinque Terre to Venice

Day One
We left our friend Dina Tuesday morning as our paths split, with us heading to Venice on our bikes and Dina taking a train to Lake Garda for the week. We were immediately greeted with some of the steep roads leading away from the ocean and through the mountains surrounding Cinque Terre. After a few kilometers of climbing, we made our way through a couple of tunnels and emerged from the final one overlooking La Spezia.

La Spezia

We descended down into the city losing all of the elevation that we had gained while climbing and made our way through the city. Like many of the cities that we have seen in northern Italy, La Spezia was very bicycle friendly with lots of bike paths and people riding. After leaving the city, we got on a road following a river that wound its way through the mountains, sparing us some of the climbing found on other nearby roads. In one of the small towns along the river, we noticed a group of people lounging on the dried riverbed as if it were the local beach, so we decided to get some food from the supermarket and make ourselves some sandwiches by the water.

Riverside Lunch

Afterwards, we continued to follow the water and enjoying the views despite the lack of elevation change on our route. Even though things were relatively flat up until this point, we knew from looking at the topo map earlier that we would be ascending to around 1000 meters at some point. What we didn’t realize at the time was that all 1000 meters would come at once.

About to ride into the clouds

Around five that afternoon, we began a climb that left the river behind us as we made our way upward over the mountain. We continued to climb for the next 15 kilometers or so (roughly 9 miles for those of you that don’t want to convert) which took us a couple of hours. By the end of the climb, we were at the highest point on our route, Passo della Cisa, at 1041 meters above sea level.

Matt climbing through a switchback

It was getting late and we were worn out from the climb, so we found a nice flat spot near the summit to cook our dinner and pitch the tent for the night. There wasn’t much cover from the road, but the traffic was scarce enough that no one would notice us during the night. We are not sure of our total climbing for the day, but since we started at sea level and ended at over 1000 meters, we knew it had been a solid day of riding.

Roadside camp site

Day Two
We packed our things from camping in the morning and started the ride out with a 200 meter descent, which is a great way to wake yourself up in the morning. We rode along through the rolling hills for another 20 kms or so before finally descending back down near sea level. This descent was a ton of fun not only because of the fast winding curves, but also because we knew that the mountains were behind us and it would be easy flatland riding all of the way to Venice.

The road descending

Shortly after things flattened out, we made our way into Parma. The road into the city was a bit busy, but once in the actual city there were tons of bike paths and we didn’t have to ride on the actual road until we left the city limits. We also found a nice quiet park where we could sit and cook some lunch. After eating, we left Parma and spent the rest of the day riding through quiet farmland while making our may to Mantova.

The view through the farmland

We made it to Mantova near the end of the day and decided to find some internet to look for a place to stay. We found an unsecured wifi network and began looking for campgrounds, only to find that there was nothing in the area. We did find a listing for a hostel, but a visit to the address showed that it must not exist because it was no where to be found. We finally decided to try our luck at finding a quiet spot out of sight at one of the waterfront parks.

Mantova from across the river

We rode along the river in Mantova and stopped to fill up water, but there was no tree cover where we would be able to camp. We did notice that the other side of the river looked more promising, so we crossed the bridge over the river to check it out. Once there, the woods were not as thick as we were hoping, but we found a spot that was sufficiently out of view and pitched our tent. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes in this area were absolutely terrible and swarmed all over us. We had to throw the tent up as quickly as possible and get in to avoid being eaten alive. Matt was able to layer up clothing and put on his bug net which made things manageable enough to retrieve a change of clothes and our food bag, but the bugs were too bad to tolerate cooking an actual dinner. We sat inside the tent eating cheese sandwiches while the mosquitoes stared us down from the outside, like we were the main stars in a zombie movie. Needless to say, it wasn’t our best night.

Day Three
We woke in the morning and scrambled to get our things packed as quickly as possible in order to avoid the wrath of the mosquitoes. Once ready to ride, we decided to go back into Mantova to fill up on water and check the internet before leaving town. While doing some research on the web, the battery in our laptop died and we were forced to wander around the downtown area looking for a power source that we could use. In the mornings, downtown Mantova is transformed into a giant market, and the large number of people and street vendors made it difficult to find what we needed. Eventually, we spotted a row of shops that all had outlets outside that we might could use, even though the shops were not open yet.

Andrew began messing with one of the boxes surrounding an outlet trying to open it and get the power source when a couple of ladies came up and started saying something in Italian. We couldn’t really understand, but they got the point across that we couldn’t use that outlet, so we started to move on. It turns out that these two ladies were the owners of the watch store that we were trying to get power from, and they were coming to open the store, which meant using the outlet we wanted for their outdoor display case. A few minutes after they arrived, they called us back over and told us that we could use one of the outlets inside of the store to recharge. We were very grateful and left the computer on top of their outdoor display case while waiting outside for the computer to charge.

The watch store where we charged up our computer

After a few minutes of waiting, the store owners called us back into the store with another surprise. They had ordered us croissants and coffee which they had delivered to the store so we could have some breakfast while we waited. The food was delicious and we tried our best to convey the details of our trip using our limited Italian and proficient hand gestures.

The generous store owners

Once on the road, we continued to ride the flats through more farmland. In one of the small towns we rode through, we passed a bike shop that we thought might be able to service Andrew’s hub and fix the freewheel slipping problem. We talked to the mechanic, using another office employee to translate, but after a half hour of trying they could not figure out how to get the Chris Kind hub disassembled. To their credit, they did try their hardest and even printed out directions from the internet, but still couldn’t figure it out since they had never worked on that brand before.

Andrew considering a new bike to buy

After giving up at the shop, our ride continued on and was fairly uneventful. We passed through more small towns and before we knew it, it was getting time to set up camp. With all of the flat farmland, it was difficult to find a suitable free camping spot, so when we saw a sign for a campground we turned off of the main road to try and find it. A couple of kilometers later, their was no sign of the campground and we were doubting its existence. We pulled over to ask a local who was out tending her garden if she knew of the campground and she didn’t know where it was. After talking with her and her husband, we asked about maybe camping on some of the nearby farmland. She went to make a phone call and came back a few minutes later to get her own bike and show us to a good spot.

Our new friend, Maria

She led us down a dirt road past corn and grape crops to a nice quiet spot. At one point, we passed an old run down barn and thought that we might be staying there.

The barn

However, we passed the barn and continued on to some more cropland where we stopped and were told that we could camp anywhere we wished in the area. We found a nice flat spot between the corn and grapes, and settled in for the night.

Matt cooking dinner

Our main day to day diet, our knife in a jar of Nutella (croissants not shown)

Day Four
We started our fourth day only 40km or so from our campground near Venice, so we knew it would be a short day. We loaded up and vacated our campsite and began riding along. We passed a few more small towns before making our final turn onto the road where we would be staying. The last 10km of the day began to feel a lot like Venice, with the road following a canal filled with tour boats headed towards the city. By noon, we had arrived at our destination with a coast to coast tour behind us, ready to settle in and go see Venice