In Adria last night we walked through town looking for one restaurant that I had seen recommended and didn't find it. The next on the list was closed - it being a Monday - so we ended up by the one recommended by Jozef, the Eurobike guide. It turned out to be very good. Two of the couples doing the same trip as us were dining outside but we went inside because smoking is not allowed inside so you don't have to put up with it from other people.
We ordered a carpaccio of roast Black Angus to share for starters and then Garth had a duck carpaccio while I had grilled pork fillet with roast potatoes. And we washed the whole lot down with a bottle of Cab Sauvignon. Afterwards the waiter brought us out a small plate with two different kinds of small biscuits, and when we had eaten those he refilled the plate. After I had paid the bill the boss handed us a small bag containing more of the biscuits - gratis.
We again rose fairly early and packed up our luggage before lugging it down to the collect point on our way to breakfast. I hadn't had a good night with the cold or whatever it is but felt Ok to face the day. We got started on the road at about 8:15am and the first part was, of course navigating out of Adria. Our course today took across many kilometres of the Po flood plains so again we spent a lot of time riding alongside either a canal, or the the River Po itself and well worked farm land n the other side. Again because it was flood plain area we rode a lot of the time on roads along he top of levees.
Along the way we heard a cuckoo at one point, the second of the trip so far, and saw several herons. There was also a bit of road kill which we could not identify except to say that it's configuration was like t hat of a rat but the size of a small dog.
We stopped at Ariane nel Polesine for a coffee, which we got at a bar, and then got some buns and salami from the bakery which we intended to have for lunch further along the way. As we were drinking our coffee there were a group of Austrian cyclists, middle aged, who were obviously enjoying their tour.
The only minor navigational error we made was on a straight stretch of road where the instruction was to turn left at the electricity sub station. We failed to recognize the building as a substation so sailed right past it but realized from the distance registered that we had mad a mistake so we backtracked a few hundred meters and corrected the fault. One of the problems with the guide directions that we have is that it says things like "16.4 Turn left onto Via such-and-such". When you make diversions into towns as you are encouraged to do as you want to see things of interest, stop for coffee, lunch, etc, the odometer on the bike computer keeps ticking over. What we find ourselves having to do is get to the next recognizable decision point, note what km reading it should be, and subtract that from our actual km reading to get the difference. Then we can just mentally add that to each of the distances quoted in the guide notes after that.
As we were approaching Bosco Mesola we experienced a light sprinkling of rain but nothing to cause us to don wet weather gear and we soon rode out of it. There were thunderstorms hanging around to the west and we were just catching the edge if it from time to time.
After Lido di Volano we stopped in a driveway/layby area to have our lunch. Again the thunderstorm threatened with a bit of noise and a few drops but it didn't come to anything. Also heard another cuckoo and saw a pheasant. By this time we were only about 13kms from our final destination - Comacchio. We found our hotel without problems and our baggage was already waiting in our room.
We put in about 68 kilometers today and have a similar distance to Ravenna tomorrow. We also made a point of stopping roughly every half an hour to have a drink of water. The hotel we are staying in tonight has a restaurant which is recommended by the guide notes so we may just 'eat in' tonight.
Garth and I went for a walk to have a look at a bit of Comacchio and had a coffee and soft drink along the way. Later I saw a barber shop so popped in to have a good trim as it has been nearly seven weeks since my last one. The barber was a nice guy who runs the place with his son. He (Dad) has just turned 72 in May and asked me how old I am. We managed to communicate reasonably well - enough to get the job done anyway.
