From Mantova to Ostiglia
29 June 2019
From Mantova to Ostiglia, where at first it seems like the ring road into the wind, and afterwards it’s just into the wind
The start
I left Mantova late, because at the agriturismo I couldn’t have breakfast before 8, and when I started getting tangled up trying to find the road between main roads and traffic lights while riding against a fierce gust, I understood right away that today would be a matter of discipline and a hard head.
The goal was to cover at least 60 km to split the road to Ferrara well in two, hoping I could proceed more gently just outside the city. And indeed, once I reached Bagnolo San Vito not without some difficulty, the situation changed.
There begins the vast area where the Mincio intertwines with the Po, giving rise to a scenery of canals, small channels, locks — all born during the great land reclamations of the early 1900s, whose facilities were often built in refined buildings, from when in Italy there was still a culture of beauty even for public housing and industrial installations.
Meanwhile I go on, with effort but I go on, hoping to find lots of beautiful things that will give me the right charge to make it all the way through.
The Po
And indeed the encounter with the Po doesn’t leave me indifferent. It is majestic, enormous, and in that moment a beautiful sensation of absolute freedom comes over me, as if I could let myself go with great trust into the embrace of that gigantic river.
I meet a guy in his twenties, standing on a bridge watching the tourist ferries on the Po. He explains to me how the locks work to let the ships through, and tells me that what for me is an epic journey, for him is daily life: he goes back and forth between Mantova and Ferrara like I go grocery shopping at the supermarket below my house. Yeah, thanks, he’s twenty! He takes a photo of me on the bridge and then I set off again.
From here on, it’s hard
From there on the matter gets complicated. One of those beautiful embankment roads begins, the kind seen in dozens of films set in places like this, even if the river is far off and you can’t see it. It’s all very beautiful actually, but the wind blows against me, it’s anyway crazy hot because it’s getting late, and I am really tired. On top of that yesterday I was bitten by a horsefly, and as often happens to me (every summer) the reaction comes the next day — I have a huge, painful calf. And I also have 45 km behind me on which I spent a lot. I stop at Governolo, a very pretty little town at the center of the junction between Mincio and Po; there are few people about, I stock up on water and set off again right away.
There’s nothing — I’m under the beating sun, I think more than once about giving up, but even if I wanted to I wouldn’t even know where to stop, since the little towns don’t even seem particularly welcoming. And I have to keep going, it’s the whole point of this story, I can’t give up now. I look at the odometer — we’re at 48 km, if not 60 I have to reach at least 55/56, hoping to find a place where I can stop. I had forgotten the name of the town I had identified as halfway between Mantova and Ferrara, and in that moment I wasn’t even quite sure where I was.
All of a sudden, truly with my last remaining strength, I find in front of me the sign for Ostiglia. There! This is where I had to stop! In the end the count is 55.59 km — I would have liked to reach 60 but here I really need to stop to recover a bit.
Having made it this far is important. I realize I have little physical preparation, the heat is oppressive, and traveling constantly into the wind has destroyed me. But today was all a matter of willpower. I’m accepting and reacting, and today I notice it a bit more.