KitKats

We had a few days off the bikes in Siena and the hill town of Volterra and had planned to complete our time in Tuscany with two grueling (and scenic) hilly days (3600 and 3200 feet of climbing, respectively) to the hill towns of Montalcino and Montepulciano. The bikes were cleaned, chains oiled, olts tightened up, and we were ready. Then, on Friday night, back in Siena Kathy twisted her knee, re-aggravating an old injury. Full range of motion was impossible, so much so that further biking and even travel of any kind was out of the question. So we shifted gears, changed plane reservations, cancelled B&B and hotel reservations, and figured out how to get ourselves and the bikes to Rome and home as soon as possible so that Kathy can see her doctor there. ... read more

Three beautiful sunny days, flat terrain, riding along the Adige and Po rivers, the Po delta with farms and wildlife reserves teeming with birds (and mosquitos), two short ferry rides on the last day, and arrival in Ravenna to end the first six-day biking segment. Sixty miles Chioggia to Ferrara, 40 miles there to Comacchio, and 35 here to Ravenna. Except for the swarm, huge, dense swarm, of mosquitos for about 30 minutes today along the lagoon south of Comacchio, this was all very pleasant riding. Apparently, Dante died in Ravenna of malaria. The abundance of mosquitos makes it clear how that could have happened. The food just gets better with each day. We will have more to say about that, eventually. Today will be more touring of early Christian sites, with great mosaics in Ravenna, ... read more

We (Kathy and Kit) arrived in Venice Wednesday evening after delayed and rerouted flight, lugging 50 lb bike cases on and off of two trains, a vaporetto ride up the Grand Canal in the twilight, and a short walk through the cobblestone streets of the Mercato Rialto to our small pension. The whole trip from home to our fourth floor (calculated the American way) walkup room consumed over 24 hours, only one or two of which involved any sleep. The plan was to relax for a day, start to get over jet lag, and enjoy the Venice show without any exertion. And so we skipped the Guggenheim and Leonardo museums, strolled aimlessly in our San Polo neighborhood near the Rialto Bridge, and rode the vaporettos (vaporetti?) to San Marco Plaza and out to the Lido, which ... read more

Our good friend and travel buddy, Karen (see previous travel blogs for Great Britain 2013 and China 2011), often talks about having a theme for a trip. While we didn't have one planned for this trip, a theme emerged early on in the form of depictions of St. John of Nepomuk. As you know from the first post, we learned about him during our first visit to Prague, where his statue dominates the Charles Bridge the site of his drowning in 1383 on the orders of King Vaclav (Wenceslas) IV. What we didn't realize until we got about the countryside on the bikes is that he is a very popular saint in Central Europe and, in an area where statues and pictures of saints are seen more frequently than anyplace else we've been, he one of ... read more

Early Sunday morning we found our way a couple miles through the streets of Pest to the Kaleti Station to catch an express train back to Bratislava. The streets were busier than we had expected for 6 AM Sunday, and we soon realized that the activity was Saturday night revelers finishing their evening out on the town. Again we found comfortable places for us and our bikes on a modern Czech rail car, and we debarked at the Old Town Bratislava in 2 1/2 hours, a trip that we had recently completed in reverse in five days of cycling. The plan now was to begin the second part of the trip by cycling up the Morava (Slovak and Czech) or March (German) River for two days to Mikulov, Czech Republic, where we join the Vienna-Prague Greenway ... read more