Day 38: Aperol Spritz with Truckers August 7
Mantua to Castelmassa 40 miles exactly
Holy hot day on the Po River Valley!
We mostly followed the levee today. The river is very low. We saw a lot of evidence of past flooding in the river valley but today the river barely filled its banks. We got buzzed today by Italian painted fighter jets... They are painted red and green like, "yes the Italians are bombing you and we are doing it in style!" They also have Italian flag hay bales as well, with red white and green stripes on the outer covering... We have seen a lot of hay bales on this trip but none have been as fashionable as the ones in Italy. We went to Revere, Italy today! Had to cross over a very big, very high bridge to do so but we just had to go!!! Andrea works in Revere, Massachusetts. We ate lunch in the shade of a big beautiful church and then had gelato in an air conditioned restaurant a little ways down the road. It was SO scorching hot today! It starts off as humid hot and then it gets so hot that the humidity burns off and all you get is dry scorching Sahara winds to the face! Whoo!!! We pushed out the last 15 km to the hotel with little stopping but for water breaks. There is very little shade on the levee but we knew that the nice man at the hotel was going to turn on the AC for us before we arrived. We went to the restaurant attached to the gas station next door for dinner. Well, it wasn't really right next door. By bike it felt that way but on foot we actually had to walk a New York City block back down the highway to get there with no sidewalk... But the food was excellent! Andrea had to have a drink called an Aperol Spritz since all of the manly trucker men were having them too! Turns out men have them with Campari but hey... They are all bright orange in a big wine glass. Awesome! Had fettuccine with duck and a grilled plate of German proportions... Except it had polenta and no German plate would have polenta... :) what a crazy hot day but really good cycling! Onwards!
The World is Ours!