Bicicletta in All Shapes and Sizes

When we got up this morning, and took a closer look at Il Raccolto in the daylight, we realized what a marvelous mistake we had made yesterday.  The herb garden alone made me homesick for gardening.  The owner is a woman in her 60's and like many of the Italians we have met, very warm and friendly.  Her breakfast was a delightful spread of orange juice and coffee, biscuits with honey and fig jam made on the farm, and proscuitto.  

Patty and I spent a fair amount of time last night looking at the maps and working with the Garmins to see if we can streamline some of the routing.  Today we finished the route that she had mapped to get us to Ferrara and it was a wonderful route on low traffic roads that were bordered by all kinds of fruit trees.  

We rode through some small villages and were seeing people of all ages on bikes...and most of them looked very fit.  Ferrara has been called Italy's City of Bicycles and with good reason...everywhere you look people are on bikes.  The cyclists seem to move in rhythm with the traffic, with children, groceries, or musical instruments aboard, on older, upright comfort bicycles.  It was...magical.

We arrived at Fredrica's around 2 pm, took a little nap and then rode back into the city to see the Castello Estense.  Easy riding and perfect weather.  We stopped for a glass of vino rosso on our way back to the B&B, sitting outside, watching the people.  Italians often meet in the late afternoon for a walk, a drink, and some small bites to eat.  We managed to do that in two places today.

Remember Patty's Oreo theory?  We had that awesome day in Abruzzo on Monday,  missed trains, got lost, went to bed hungry yesterday, and had another wonderful day today.  We need an Italian song to sing while we ride...seriously.