Cycle trip day 35: along the Adriatic
Written by Kat
We're spending a few rest days in Trieste before preparing to cross over the border into Slovenia for just a few hours, then arrive in Croatia.
Northern Italy has been delightfully, wonderfully, unbelievably flat. There have been several days with barely any elevation. For the first few days after Turin we stayed in pretty but small towns and cities. The cycling was challenging at times as the roads are extremely busy without much space for overtaking; the scenery was mostly wheat and rice fields, frequently alongside rivers. The ride to Ferrara was our longest on this trip so far at just over 100km. Luckily we had a beautiful sunny day and much of it was on completely traffic free roads alongside rivers and canals. The biggest problem was the poplar trees sending out huge drifts of fluffy seeds which made us sneeze.
Mantua and Ferrara were attractive cities but Padua and Treviso were really stunning. Happily we had time for some sightseeing in all of them. We ended up taking a couple of trains, in part because there have been heavy thunderstorms. In fact, we've stayed an extra couple of days in Trieste hoping to avoid more bad weather. Fingers crossed it improves once we go further south in Croatia, we weren't expecting it to be so cold and wet in May!
Trieste is an interesting place, right on the border with Slovenia with grand buildings on the seafront facing the Adriatic. They have their very own wind, called the Bora, which is apparently a defining characteristic of the city.
We're not sure what to expect in Croatia but we are excited to get back on the bikes again - although there will definitely be quite a bit of up and down hill from now on.