From Boccasette to Venice
18 June 2023
After a not exactly idyllic night at the agriturismo, due to sleepless neighbors going back and forth to the outside, I have a decent breakfast and get moving for the long crossing to Venice.
The start (and the €2)
The air is fairly fresh and it feels good, but I’m not in great shape. I’m tired, but above all my head isn’t in it, and when that’s the case the pedals always feel incredibly heavy. I struggle a bit but try to grind it out. In the end I manage to reach Porto Levante, where I realize I have a problem: I only have cards, no cash, even though I was convinced I had some. And it’s quite a problem: I’ll need 2 euros to cross the canal with the little ferry, and I don’t expect to be able to use credit cards. I decide to go to the bar, where I explain the situation and ask if I can pay a bit more for water and coffee to get 2 euros change in cash. The kind barista explains that she can’t do that, for administrative reasons. I tell her the story, my bike trip, where I’m going, the ferry, and a young guy who was listening turns to me and says “So you need money?”, “Well, to be honest, yes, I don’t have the 2 euros for the ferry”. “I’ll give them to you, don’t worry” and he hands me a 2-euro coin, “that means you’ll recommend me a restaurant in Rome”. “Listen, what’s your name?” I ask. “Andrea”. “Good, Andrea, my name is Fabrizio, write down my phone number, and whether it’s in a month or in a year, as soon as you’re in Rome call me and I’ll give you any tips you want”. We exchange numbers, and I rush off to the little harbor to catch the ferry that would be leaving in a few minutes.
The ferry on the Po, and the awakening
And indeed it arrives. I’m alone, at the helm there’s Vanni, and during the few-minute crossing we chat about various things — local tourism, the Romagna flood, the trees that grow in mud but only on the condition that it doesn’t dry out, which then is the drama of what’s happening to the Romagna orchards. I say goodbye to Vanni and thank him for the short crossing.
These small shared moments leave me with a beautiful feeling of authentic humanity, which “switches back on” my engine. I feel better, now I’m in it mentally too. I pedal with conviction, and I start whistling a few random notes. I meet many road cyclists — the long, car-free asphalt straights are evidently an irresistible draw, and they all have a hello or a smile for this bizarre cyclist with bags pedaling at 19 km/h and whistling.
To Chioggia, and then to Venice
The route flows by quietly, also along the Adige, which I have to cross to start entering the Chioggia area. And it’s there, once I reach Isola Verde, that I get bogged down in the chaos of the Sunday crowd heading to the sea. What a mess! Cars everywhere, an oppressive heat, at a certain point I even find myself in a parking lot through which a gravel road I was following ran. Somehow I manage to push through and I reach Chioggia — first along a chaotic seafront like everything else I’d seen so far, but then finally in the historic center, where you breathe an entirely different air.
I stop at a cicchetteria — I’m hungry and need to rest, and from what I can see the vaporetto to Pellestrina would be leaving about 40 minutes later. I had all the time I needed.
After a bit of rest and a few cicchetti, I head to the port, buy a ticket, and board the ferry. There I find myself with several cyclists going in the same direction; one in particular was literally doing my same route, having set off from Cesenatico and headed to Venice. We start chatting, we tell each other a few things, and once we reach Pellestrina we decide to continue together to Venice.
Pellestrina is beautiful, I had been there years ago and the memory of this strip of land in the middle of the sea had stayed very dear to me. We pedal fairly quickly — you can tell we both also feel a bit like wrapping up the loop. One ferry after another (Pellestrina-Lido and Lido-Venice) we arrive in Venice.
I say goodbye to my travel companion who would be setting off again right away, while I decide to leave the bike at the Bike Park (super cool), where in some hair-raising way I also manage to change clothes, and I go to have a couple of spritz while waiting for the train.
So many thoughts, so many images, so many things. There really is a lot in a short but intense trip like this. Once again I bring with me something that enriches me, that stimulates me, that keeps me alive. Thank you, you who have read this far. Telling the stories of my bike trips is a way of stopping the memories in place, but above all of reflecting myself in them, of finding what they have transformed inside me. And every time it’s a discovery, and a conquest.