#to take a breather in a sunnier spot

[followingliz]

Finally a New Adventure! The Really Long Bike Ride [Part 1]

The weather is getting warmer and sunnier and Alex is FINISHED with her exams for this semester! She has two weeks to recoup and we are going OUTSIDE!  To celebrate having time to leave our house, we decided to do something a little crazy....go on a super duper long bike ride!

We wanted to do something active, socially distant and out in the fresh air. The Po River which runs through the top of our province created the lush farm area that makes up most of our region. SO we decided we should go see it! While the route is not nearly as beautiful as the Apennines in the other direction, it is incredibly flat and since we haven’t done much exercise in the past two months, we decided the flat route was better than trying to go up into the mountains.

The path we followed generally ran alongside the Crostolo River - the same that runs through Parco delle Caprette. It was combination of gravel bike path, single track,  and paved road 

There was only one kind of sketchy point in which we had to go through the town of Castelnovo di Sotto. The town itself had very nice bike paths

but getting into the town we had to ride on the side of a somewhat busy road and go around a round about which was very nerve wracking.

Helpfully, as this is a common bike route- the town has little stickers posted on sign poles directing you towards the Po. This stickers are very small and so it became a bit of a treasure hunt for a while

Once we were out of Castelnovo di Sotto, we thought the path would be easy to follow but we did accidentally end up on a farmers driveway ( we took the low path when we should of taken the high path.) We ended up needing to sort of clamber up the bank while the very confused horses judged us.

But we found the path and once again, we were riding along the Crostolo, however it had transformed from a pleasant river to a distinct ditch. Not pretty at all. Very ditch.

Though we did see terrapins in the water! Which means it must be somewhat clean...

Around us was a lot of very flat farmland and various farms. While not as stunning as Monte Ventasso it was nice to get a feeling of wide open space and endless horizon after staying inside for so long.

15k in we had a half-way rest-stop, Lago La Fornace. It’s a sport-fishing lake just north of Castelnovo di Sotto.

It was beautiful to stop and eat our sandwiches, take a breather and check in with how we were feeling. There were a few fisherman scattered around the edge but for the most part it was deserted!

With very many nice benches, a lovely little play are with swings for children, a cafe ( that was closed) and an area where they might make pizzas in the summer this seemed like it was once a popular spot!

We were really pleased to have found this chill spot in the middle of nowhere. And though we only took a short 15min break, it was worth the stop.

This post is already very long- so I’m going to break up our journey into a few parts- check back next week to see if we made it to the Po!