A Side trip to an Ancient Walled City and A Fabulous Finish to Our Day

 Treviso ~ Cittadella ~ San Bonifacio

Perhaps the less said about the riding on today’s journey the better. However, we briefly visited a beautiful ancient walled city on our way to tonight’s destination and our arrival here at the Monte Tondo Vineyard in San Bonficio made it all worthwhile. 

Before I go any further in dissecting our journey I need to give a shout out to our friend Harry Pancis. This tour in some ways for us is becoming the “Bike Friends Austria Kit Trip”.

 I think I mentioned at least once in a previous post that we visited Harry and his wife Petra in Seekirchen am Wallersee and took them to lunch to show our appreciation for looking after our bike bags for us while we are on this trip, and that afterwards Harry gave us both some cycling kit to take with us. 

Early on when it was cool and wet for a number of days we both wore more protective Bike Friends Austria kit: I wore the long-sleeved jersey that Harry gave me and Di wore the excellent gilet that Harry gave her. However, since then as the weather has turned hot we have both almost exclusively employed the lightweight summer jerseys - and, for me, the bib shorts - that Harry also gave us. This generous gift has made our bike tour so much more enjoyable: as anyone who does a lot of cycling in varying conditions will attest, appropriate clothing for day after day of riding makes a big difference to one’s comfort levels. 

Here is a photo I took today of Di wearing, yet again, her Bike Friends Austria lightweight jersey …

Now, here’s the route we took on today’s ride …

We angled slightly more north in the first 40 kilometres of the journey than our destination required because we wanted to visit the gorgeous, walled medieval city of Cittadella. We’d been there before when we were travelling east across the Veneto from Ferrara, another ancient town in northern Italy. We had fond memories of Cittadella and were looking forward to visiting it with our cycling companions Michael, Louise, Jane and Duckworth, and to promenading the circuit of  the city walls. Unfortunately due to a combination of factors including Michael falling ill and the immense heat sink that has settled over Europe, those plans were shelved.

Di and I rode on our own again today and we did pedal our route to and through Cittadella, but only for a brief visit for a quick brunch. Here are some photos from our passage into and out of the city …

Briefly, the first thirty kilometres of our journey were forgettable. Thankfully, we got away early in order to beat the heat as much as we could and the roads we were riding along were perhaps not as busy as they might have been otherwise. However traffic did build up pretty quickly and it wasn’t a lot of fun. Thankfully the ten kilometres into Cittadella were on more rural, less busy roads and the riding was more enjoyable albeit not remarkable.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at the the elevation profile below for today’s ride, but it would still fall into the category of “pancake flat” for anyone who has done much riding in varied terrain. We only had 259 metres of elevation gain, which is 0.26% overall gradient. Nothing at all in the greater scheme of things. I have to say though after three consecutive centuries slogging across the Veneto in mostly light headwinds my tired legs were complaining at even the slightest rise in the last thirty or so kilometres. I am happy to say that, although glad that I pedaled every kilometre, I’m glad it’s behind me, with a short day in the offing tomorrow before a rest day on the shores of Lake Garda.

After Cittadella the riding was quite okay for about ten or so kilometres but then we came into the massive urban sprawl this is Vicenza which is, apparently “a thriving and cosmopolitan city, with a rich history and culture” but we didn’t see any of that. I put it down to poor route building on my part. I was trying to avoid the city centre because I thought it would be very busy and we didn’t want to get caught up in slow traffic traversing a city centre. Talk about “the best-laid plans of mice and men”!  We rode kilometre after kilometre along a road thundering with large trucks and a lot of people in way too much of a hurry. It was a massive relief when we finally found ourselves back on quiet roads and we started riding through small towns again. Here are some photos from that section of riding …

By this time the day had really warmed up and we were hunting gelato and hydration options. We stopped once at a supermarket where Di found us some sports drink and Haribo energy chews which I gather have a bit of a following amounts European cyclists. We had a stop at a car cleaning place where I got some Fanta and ice cream bars but the best stop was a combination gelateria/pasticceria. We didn’t feel at all like ingesting pastries at this point but the ice cream was like the gates of heaven had opened. We both opted for two scoops and sat in air-conditioned comfort while we gobbled them up.

Eventually with about ten kilometres to go we rode into beautiful, verdant, undulating wine country. No mixed agriculture here: it was all wine grapes. Here’s a little video I shot in that area …

 Di wanted to stop for a slight wardrobe adjustment while we were passing through an avenue of beautiful trees amongst the vine clad hills and while she did that I composed this photo of a tree trunk and vines in the background …

We were just three kilometres from the Monte Tondo Winery where we were headed for the night when I spotted a bar at a crossroads and said to Di, “I’m stopping here for a beer. Will you join me?” Thankfully she agreed otherwise there might have been fireworks - albeit rather feeble as that is how we were both feeling at this stage. 

Di decided it was probably best if she didn’t have a beer and opted for a large sparkling mineral water, I thought that a beer couldn’t be bad and ordered a large Moretti “recette originale” and yes, it went down very well indeed!

Much refreshed, we got back on our bikes and pedaled the remaining three kilometres. And what a pleasure it was to arrive! Here are some images and a video from outside and inside the winery. Note the vaulted ceiling of the courtyard to the winery …

The courtyard was filled with grape-growing and wine-making relics from a bygone era …

Monte Tondo is a family-owned winery now in its third generation. It was established in the nineteen seventies by the patriarch of the family, and the building you see here was erected by his son in the nineties. He is 73 years old and still works daily amongst the vines during growing season and in the winery when harvest and production is happening. 

I tried to take a photo of this gorgeous Harley-Davidson motorcycle that he owns and still occasionally rides from inside the winery but there was too much backlight so I had to go back outside to get this snap …

To finish, here are a few images from inside the winery showing the rich mixture of wine making and culture appreciation on display …

Here’s a likeness of the founder …

… and finally, the bottle of Monte Tondo Pinot Grigio we had with the platter that served as our dinner …