It's All Over Now Baby Blue ...

You must leave now, take what you need

Well, not just now, but ... sadly ... soon. Very soon, we hope. That's probably not what most readers were expecting to hear from the next blog post of our 2018 holiday with all its big plans. But that's the way it is. Here's the tale.

Freewheeling in Ferrara 

My last post was from Pagnano in the Venetian Hills. Dianne and I had a great time there, with some excellent riding including a foray up into the Dolomites to do the sublime Sella Ronda - a long-held dream.

Di rolling through the wonderful Sella Ronda

Having a Mellow Time in Emilia Romagna

From Pagnano we moved down to to the flats and the historic town of Ferrara on the River Po. We had booked an apartment for a week within the old walls of this ancient city - which dates back to the 6th century BC - so we could enjoy the feeling of living inside an old town along with the locals. It was lovely, with life at a very slow pace. The old town is very bike and pedestrian friendly. 

No cars here

Our accommodation was less than 100 metres from the National Archeology Museum, which perhaps gives a sense of the history and culture of the area. Less than a kilometre away was the the central piazza. In our short street there were two bicycle repair shops which were all about bikes for living in the city. This repair shop was almost directly across the street from us ...

Bikes for town living

One afternoon passing a bakery we saw something that I don't know exists in Australia, a bread delivery bike ...

Bread delivery bike

While in Ferrara we had a few rides around the Po River. It was by far the flattest cycling either of us had ever done, which was perfect leading up to our tour.

One day we had a rest from riding and went to visit the town of Chioggia on the southern end of the Laguna di Venezia and enjoy some Spaghetti Vongole for lunch. Chioggia has a wonderful atmosphere and seems to be largely still inhabited by locals. It's a canal city ...

The main canal of Chioggia

... and has a large central piazza. There are a number of restaurants there, but it certainly is NOT overwhelmed by a tourist feeding frenzy - unlike the other canal town around the way. We were delighted to see a group of casual cyclists roll through the piazza together at a relaxed pace ..

Things were going along just about perfectly until two days before we joined our tour.

The Highway is for Gamblers, Better Use Your Sense

Actually, the "highway" seems fine. It's the bike paths in Italy that you've got to watch out for. Each one of them seems different from the next in the way they are marked, delineated, constructed or furnished. Some of them share space with cyclists, others don't: some of them have lines down the middle of them, others don't. It was on one of the shared pedestrian/bike paths that a mishap occurred that has brought our holiday to a premature end.

We were less than a kilometre from our apartment, riding along a path with lanes separated by thin steel bollards about a metre high, spaced about 20 metres apart. They looked pretty much like the one below ...

... but unlike this one, they come with a lovely olde worlde patina that renders them almost invisible in the afternoon light.
Di was cruising along slowly about 30 metres behind me when I heard a heart-rending crash and a cry of dismay. She'd been watching the scenery, not the pathway. Suddenly realising she was about to hit one of these bollards, she thinks she somehow avoided the bollard but landed squarely on her butt in the process. Unfortunately it is often the slow spills that do the most damage.

Although Di was in great pain, her first concern was for her bike - normally a good sign. She had a very sore butt, soreness in her midriff - which she thought was from muscle spasms and bruised kidneys. She was able to gingerly get back on the bike and we rode the 800 metres of so to our apartment. She thought she would be alright with a bit of rest and the first two days of easy riding leading into the Dolomites.

Risky Riding

We had a complete day of rest after Di's accident apart from packing up our bikes. Di was sore but moving okay. The following day we duly set off for Venice and the start of our much anticipated bike tour. We met all our fellow riders, put our bikes back together and had a casual ride down to the end of The Lido and back. Understandably, Di was feeling a bit tender but riding fine. The following day was a bit more of a test: a bit over 100 kilometres but flat riding until we got into some gentle hills towards the end of the day. She was quite upbeat at the end of that day after feeling very comfortable on the bike throughout the ride. She'd already planned on missing the long hill at the end of the next day and skipping the Sella Ronda the day after that, as we'd already been up to ride it while we were staying in Pagnano. The following day began with a 700 metre climb up to the Passo Falzarego. Here is Di nearing the pass ...

More gorgeous Dolomites riding

A lovely descent to Cortina followed, where we took morning coffee and then it was a largely downhill roll for the next 60 kilometres, much of which was on superb Austrian bike paths. Di really enjoyed that day and we thought things were looking up. 

However, Di was often feeling quite uncomfortable off the bike, including having trouble sleeping due to what she thought was bruising in her kidneys. 

The Bad News is Delivered

There was a massive day ahead over the Grossglockner which Di had originally planned to ride but decided to forego given her condition. She thought it might be a good idea to go ahead in the car with Eva, one of our support staff, to the hospital in Zell Am See for a checkup. Once in there an X-Ray was done that showed she had fractured her T-12 vertebra, which is pretty much right in the middle the back. (This is apparently quite a common fracture in impact injuries, more so in older people. 🙁)

We haven't seen the X-Ray, but we've been told it is a non-displaced fracture. The emergency doctor initially thought that Di would be kept in overnight, that the doctor would visit her on their rounds the next day, she would see a physiotherapist for some exercises and instructions on what to avoid doing and then she would be released. Her immediate thought was that we could continue to have our holiday, but she wouldn't be able to ride her bike or do the trek of the Cathar Way that we had planned. She thought I could finish the bike tour and she could meet us on the rest days while she travelled around on public transport, then we would collect our hire car and continue our travels in France. Not so, as it turned out.

The News Gets Worse

Di had had a CT scan done as well as the X-Ray. Along with the fracture of the T12 vertebra, it showed the T12 - L1 disc is compressed. When the doctor came to see Dianne the next morning he informed her that the hospital would be recommending her evacuation to Australia by ambulance, flat travel while on the airplane, transport within airports via wheelchair and ambulance from the airport in Hobart to the hospital. The information that we have at the moment is that she will have to avoid "sport" for 12 weeks. Devastating news, particularly for Di who has never had such a serious injury before.

Naturally, she was pretty upset. But, as she does, she collected herself and moved on to the visit with the physiotherapist. Here they are in discussion about things to do And things to avoid ...

Getting the good oil

... and here's another photo of her shortly after, feeling a bit more upbeat ...

She'll be right!

Moving On

We are well aware that things could have been far worse than they are. Di will live to ride and hike again as long as this injury is managed appropriately. She has no sign of any nerve damage. The doctor was shocked to hear that she'd ridden her bike more than 300 kilometres since the injury, including up several fairly challenging hills but at least that shows her body is still functioning pretty darn well. Like I said, she's tough. I am immensely proud of her. After quite some time trying to liaise between our insurance company and the hospital staff, we have finally been told - informally at this stage - that we will be on our way home on Tuesday, so the day after tomorrow. And I guess that brings this blog to a conclusion. But we definitely expect that there are more sunny days like this one ahead ...

There's always something to smile about

Adios from the two of us

Juggling Too Many Blogs??? 🤔

Dopey Doug

I dunno!

Maybe a day off the bike and a lazy start has made me a little vague. The prognosis was for dampness through to drenching the whole day. We needed to get a few small jobs done too. And we have a bit of a project in mind for tomorrow that would benefit from a bit of a rest.  I decided that it was also a good day to write a blog post even though it was a little earlier than planned. It has been an eventful few days anyway so it seemed a timely thing to do.

Anyway. Perhaps due to a combination of factors I inadvertently posted in my general blog rather than the travel blog created specifically for this trip. IF you'd like to read what we've been up to since we left Mantua, please click here.

Regards

Doug

Touchdown ... and the journey begins!

Starting with a bit of culture

Greetings from Mantua - or, as the Italians call it "Mantova". There's some history here: apparently the place was settled around 2000 B.C. so there have been people living in this spot for over 4000 years. It's a gem of a place. The Guardian called it "Italy's sleeping beauty city", and it became the Italian "Capital of Culture" in 2016. Lovers of literature - and maybe just lovers in general 😉 - might also recognise Mantua from Shakespeare, But more of that later.

One of a number of classic piazzas in Mantua's ancient citadella

The square in the photo above is cobbled and the cobbles haven't been made more user friendly for the tourists. Here's an image of what they look close up ...

Now THOSE  are cobbles!

Here's another glimpse of an old building in the heart of the old city ...

One thing Italy is know for is it's cycling tradition, including a history of making wonderful racing bikes. And the world's oldest make of bike still in production is the Bianchi so I couldn't resist another photo when I saw this classic parked up against a pillar ...

Bianchi's the name; making bicycles is the game

We've just had a short stroll here in Mantua since our protracted transfer from Hobart. We both thought a nice cold drink in the open air would be just the tonic for the stuffiness of airplane fuselages and airport lounges. Here's a photo of Di in the sunshine, partway through an Italian red beer and refreshing some essential Italian phrases ...

Sipping beer and studying the lingo

Getting here

Being in transit - especially in cattle class airline travel - is generally not a whole lot of fun. Thankfully, in the greater scheme of things it is only transitory. Getting from our front door to Milan, where we picked up our rental car, took just on 35 hours. That journey, which involved four flights, looks something like this:

There are a lot of adages bandied about regarding travel. Stuff about it being not the destination that matters, but the journey - and generally I'd agree with that.  However, this part of "the journey" gets almost no kudos for enjoyment or enlightenment.

A Diamond amidst the dross

Long airline journeys invariably seem to involve cycles of reading, movie watching and dozing broken up by the occasional stretch, feeding session and visit to the toilet. Very occasionally a great film will lift the tone, and that happened for me towards the end of our transit from the antipodes to touching down in Europe. In my search for something worth watching I came across "Les Grands Esprit": a recent French variation on themes dealt with in "Stand and Deliver" which is an inspirational movie - based on a true story - about what inspired teachers can do with students who have been written of by everyone else around them. Here is a glimpse of the action ...

Although the English title for this movie is "The Teacher" I prefer a more literal translation: either 'Great Minds' or 'Great Spirits'. If you have some long travel ahead with the Star Alliance group, I highly recommend it. 

Getting on with it

Once we landed in Milan we were delighted that our luggage came through so quickly. That joy was a bit tempered with the drawn out affair of picking up "our" rental car at Milan. Firstly because the staff were very, very inefficient; secondly because the car we'd booked and paid for months ago wasn't ready and waiting for us. In the end, we were upgraded - which sounds like a good thing but in fact wasn't because the car we've got has more luxury features and passenger room, but less storage space than what we'd ordered. For us, the critical thing was being able to get our bike bags and suitcases in and out of the back easily. This car allows us to fit them all in, but not easily.

Anyway back to the idea of "the journey". Really, this whole trip is based on the concept of journeying for its own sake, rather than arriving at a particular place or places. It hinges around one journey in particular: our Lionheart bike odyssey, so I really like this travel quote: "It's not the destination, but the glory of the ride".  Perfect!

After that bike tour, we are going to walk through history via the Cathar Way, where we'll wander past a bunch of ruined castles like this one ...

We'll be doing that with our Breton friend Michel Leonard, who we met way back in 2010 when we traversed the Pyrenees. We are really looking forward to looking backward as we hike through history with Michel. What the Catholics did to the Cathars in the name of religion is very sobering, and I imagine we'll talk a lot about all that as we walk along.

More musings about Mantua

Did you recall where Shakespeare speaks of Mantua? Well of course it's in Romeo and Juliet. This old city is where Romeo is exiled to after killing Juliet's cousin Tybalt.

In a different life, working as a high school English teacher I relished the challenge of introducing Shakespeare to year nine and ten students. For the year tens it was either generally in the form of Macbeth or Caesar, but for the year nines we tended to use Romeo and Juliet. We would use film to help bring to life for our youthful charges the passion and themes of the text.

Older readers - yes, my generation! - might remember and prefer Zeffirelli's classic rendering of the play. While I thought it was a pretty good movie, there always seemed to be something missing. But  when Baz Luhrmann gave us his  interpretation I was blown away. The outrageous opening fight scene (isn't John Luguizamo's Tybalt just wonderful!) at the gas station sets us up brilliantly for what's to come. But the scene that perhaps shows more than any other the way reason and logic can be totally overwhelmed by emotion is the one where Romeo kills Tybalt and seals his own fate ...

When we were looking for a place not too far from Milan to chill for a couple of days after our journey from Hobart to Italy we stumbled upon Mantua. Neither of us had been here before and when we read a bit about the place we decided it would do perfectly. We're going to spend most of tomorrow out wandering about the old city. From the brief glimpse we've had so far today it looks like we're going to have a great day. If you're looking for some pleasant places of culture to visit in Italy that are off the beaten track maybe Mantua is worth considering. 

And that's it for today. I promised Di I wouldn't flog myself silly with blogging on this holiday and she says I've written enough so I'm stopping. Catch you next time.

The Opening Bounce

What's in a Name?

Well, in this case of this blog, a bit of creative licence at least. There will be only one "Crusader" of note, but lots of Cathars and Canucks! more of that in a moment. In the meantime, if you're not from or haven't visited Downunderland and become a fan of the Best Game in the World I thought I better explain "opening bounce". It's the term used to describe the start of an Aussie Rules football match, and as I'm officially - according to my most oft-used passport - Australian, I thought I'd use a bit of Downunder jargon to kick off this post.

Crusaders

So, I'm just starting a blog for the upcoming trip that Dianne and will embark on in a couple of weeks. We're starting our holiday with a couple of weeks on our own in northern Italy, and then joining what was the catalyst and will be the core of this trip: a month-long bike tour roughly following this route:

The tour traces Richard the Lionheart's journey from Venice to where he (well, most of him anyway) is buried at Abbeye de Fontevraud southwest of Paris.

We don't expect to encounter any other crusaders, especially not these guys ...

On the other hand we are looking forward to the excellent historical perspective on Lionheart that we will get from Sam Wood, our tour guide and historian extraordinaire.

Cathars

After a couple weeks of recovery in Normandy and Brittany we're going to make our way to southern France to walk Le Sentier Cathar with our friend Michel Leonard. It will be a couple of weeks of travelling at a slower pace, contemplating the Cathar religion, the castles they built and their persecution and annihilation by the Roman Catholics under Pope Innocent III (not so innocent, eh!).

Canucks

We will have another short break before flying to Vancouver and spending three weeks visiting Canucks  in the form of family and friends who do  like their hockey ...

 ...  - and we might just ride our bikes a bit 😉 in southwestern British Columbia ...

... before coming home to Hobart.



I hope you enjoy the blog. If not, blame Gillian Woodley, our wonderful travel agent, who has been the catalyst and inspiration for my decision to put it together! If you're interested in our travels you should be able to subscribe to receive posts by clicking on one of three options. The next post will probably be in a few weeks time when we will be recuperating from long-distance flying in Mantua, where Romeo was exiled ... or so the story goes.

And, to finish, a little flashback. I once thought ice hockey was the Best Game in the World. While yes, it is a Good Game - even a very, very Good Game - and the fastest sport on two legs - it just doesn't have the multi-dimensional, spectacular nature of Aussie Rules. Check out this marvellous mark in 2001 by diminutive Gary Moorcroft.