Vicenza to Zevio to Mantova BOLOGNA POLOGNA Whats the Difference

 

Devon and I undercover. Getting ready to eat our lunch. A Jimmy chocolate bar. This was the ride from Zevio to Mantua. A very rainy cold ride in the 40's F. We definitely needed more layers. We thought the rain gear would keep us warmer than it did. Chilled to the bones. More on this later.

The ride from Vicenza to Zevio was another almost flat ride with tons af beautiful pastoral scenery. Just a super nice casual ride.

In is nice to see how popular bicycling is in Europe. This small town was having mountain bike racing. Every parking lot had a different tent/team getting ready for the races with different divisions for different age groups. Hundreds of riders.

This is our farm stay in Zevio. A great stop. Now here is the BOLOGNA POLOGNA story, whats the difference?. Just a km from arriving to this farm stay Devon and I decided to stop for a beer and a Spritz. We started talking to a woman and her friend next to us, they were curious about where we are from and our adventure. They could speak some English. We told them we started in Bologna then to Slovenia, Croatia and now here. They were totally amazed and asked how the mountains were, how many km have we traveled and where in Pologna we started. I said just a neighborhood and I wasn't sure of the street in Bologna. She said she was from Pologna. We went back and forth for a few minutes on where we started the trip as she wanted to know where because of her being from Pologna. She then asked if we started in Warsaw.  Warsaw? I said no, we started in Bologna just a 100 km from here. All of a sudden she broke out in some major laughter. She then explained that Italy is the only country that calls Poland, Pologna. With the differences in our English she thought I was saying Pologna the whole time. We all had a good laugh.

Sandro, the owner of the Zevio farm stay and I, we had a great afternoon chatting over the construction and rebuild of the collapsing farm building into a beautiful place to stay. He is an amateur wood worker and with our common interests he asked how long we were in the area as he would give us a free place to stay if i helped build a bike shed for guests that he has been wanting to build. Maybe next year. Later in the evening Sandro brought us to a take away pizza place as it was basicly the only open place on a Sunday evening.

This pizza take away place puts out the pizzas. About 300 an evening. And they aren't open late.

Leaving Zevio farm stay. Rain, rain, rain.

Halfway through the ride I found a shelter for a quick bite of the Jimmy bar. We were to damn cold and wet to bother getting any other food out. Not only was it rainy but huge winds. I'm guessing 25 to 30mph all day. Fortunately they were mostly a push so we made record time. 

Read about the sword and blood of Jesus. 

Here is the church in Mantova where it is stored. The dome in the center where the light is coming from is the second largest in Italy.

The streets of Mantova.

The following are the two RidewithGPS maps from our two rides.