A cycling trip through northern Italy

Don’t want elevation gain? Let the train take you over the Alps!

To get all the way from Berlin to the southern slopes of the Alps was a day in and of itself — two bikes, eight bike bags and other gear, two young kids, three trains, and 13 hours. But despite tired kids (and tired parents by the end of it), it actually went far better than we could have imagined.

After turning in late at night after our arrival in Bolzano, we woke up the next morning to find ourselves looking out the window at the lovely mountains of the Italian Dolomites and an equally lovely town.

Pedaling down from the Dolomites

Once we got the bikes rolling and started getting out into the countryside, we were impressed right away. Castles, mountains, and lakes greeted us everywhere, while well-marked and surfaced bicycle paths allowed us to simply focus on everything around us. For the first few days, we followed the established EuroVelo 7 route along the Adige river, and while we did take a few detours that resulted in some moderate uphill climbs, the majority of days were spent slowly losing altitude as we travelled south from the heights of the Dolomites.

Luckily, it seemed like our kids had a certain amount of muscle memory about how to do a bike trip, and they laughed and slept and had fun on their little bicycle seats right from day one, so long as we made sure to stop by a playground whenever mama and daddy needed a break from pedaling. They seemed to appreciate the city of Trento just as much as we did, and even sleeping in the tent wasn’t much of a problem once they got over the initial excitement. It also didn’t take long for us to discover the perfect Italian parenting hack: if you bring a freshly made pizza to a nearby playground, your kids will run off with a pizza slice or crust in hand to go play while the parents can sit back and enjoy some of the most truly delicious pizzas one could ever wish for.

The difference that quality camping gear makes

During our first few days in Italy, it rained every night. And not just a little bit of rain… lots! Like, thunderstorm lots. Many Italians were worried for us and even offered for us to come inside with the kids if it got bad, but they must have never used a quality tent or camping gear before! We spent a good deal of money on our tent alone, probably about the equivalent of 4 or 5 nights in a hotel. But given the fact that we’ll probably get at least a hundred nights out of it, even when it’s pouring down, means it basically pays for itself!

Lake Garda

Instead of strictly following the EuroVelo 7, we decided to take a slight detour to the west and check out Lake Garda. We knew it would be a pity to miss it, plus we were getting a little tired of how built up it was around the main bicycle route, with far more highways, railways, farms, and built up areas than we had expected. The two roads alongside the lake were apaprently not great for cycling, but then we had a brilliant idea: what if we took a boot?

As we descended down the steep and rain-slicked road toward the lake, we gazed out at the stunning scenery and knew right away it was a good decision. After a chaotic breakfast at a restaurant beside the lake (with two young children, a restaurant is never a good idea), we headed to the dock and waited for our boat to arrive as we gazed and what is probably the most perfect rainbow any of us will ever seen!

As our boat slowly motored down the lake, we were treated to some of the most picturesque towns one could imagine. With one of our kids taking an early nap, Elliott also decided that it would be a perfect moment to have an early morning beer and simply take it all in while serving as a warm and cuddly bed. It was one of his most memorable moments of the trip! Near the end of the day the rain clouds that had been trailing us for the whole trip up to that point almost managed to catch up. We made it off the boat in time to avoid that hazard, but fell straight into another one: the hell of the endless tourist-resort town that is the south end of Lake Garda! Despite it already being late in the day and our kids showing signs of being tired, we pushed on as fast as we could until we found a delightful little farm to camp at far from the tourist hordes. Thank goodness!

Verona

Our next major stop was Verona, a UNESCO site and the city of Romeo and Juliette, and as it turns out, we stayed at the best campground we’ve ever been to in Europe: Camping Castel San Pietro. That’s right – we camped inside the walls of an actual castle with the beautiful city of Verona spread out below us!

If that wasn’t enough to make Verona worth visiting, it turns out the city is stunning as well. From the historic main square to the ancient Roman arena or the Ponte Pietra bridge we crossed each time we went to town from our castle campground, everything we saw made us want to stop and linger a little longer.

For us, Verona epitomized the European beauty we had been dreaming about when we planned the trip. We hadn’t imagined that it would be quite so cold and rainy, and it seemed like the city would have been that much nicer baked in warm sunshine rather than cold and clouds, but we still had enough good weather (and an indoor room for the kids to run and play at the campsite) and saw enough of the city’s charms to make it well worth the visit.

The Po Valley

Flowing eastward across northern Italy, the Po is Italy’s largest river. With an accolade like that, you might expect the surrounding Po Valley to be quite spectacular. Once when we started cycling across its flat, agriculture-dominated plains, we realized that it was, well… fine. But the cities, on the other hand, were certainly worth visiting!

“Turn left onto single track”

We use a combination of Komoot and Google Maps for our bike trips. Komoot is usually pretty good, but over the years it’s been polluted with a bit too much user data that could benefit from some quality control. Sometimes, Komoot will tell us to turn into what often doesn’t even resemble a road or trail at all. Often, at the very end of a long, hot day, it will play a joke on us by telling us to “turn left (or right) onto single track,” which basically means “this isn’t actually really a trail at all, but a goat walked here once so it should be good enough for a bike.” Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s frustrating, but it’s always an adventure!

To be fair, it is a single track

Downhill, no less!

Mantova

The city of Mantua was a pleasant surprise. While seemingly off the international tourist circuit (but filled with groups of Italian high school students while we were there), it boasts a lovely old town and a historic main square paved with treacherously round river rocks.

It turns out Mantua also has an extensive castle converted into a beautiful renaissance palace, the Palazzo Ducale, featuring countless lavishly decorated halls and chambers. As we wandered from one to the other, it was almost difficult to appreciate so much renaissance-style beauty all at once.

One such chamber is the Camera Picta, a relatively small room featuring magnificent frescoes by Andrea Mantegna and earning it the moniker of “the most beautiful room in the world.” But after about one minute our daughter declared it was boring and stormed out of the room, so… that was the end of that.

Ferrara

Knowing that Ferrara was another UNESCO city, we decided it was the next stop on our trip. That meant joining up with the actual Po river and following it most of the way, but to be honest, the flat plains were starting to feel a little unspectacular by this point. Luckily, however, the weather took a turn for the better, and even the flat plains suddenly feeling pretty alright.

Instead of staying directly in Ferrara, we got very lucky and found a lovely family-run hotel a few kilometres west of town that let us use a gift certificate we’d been holding onto for the last few years since our wedding. After a week or so of camping in the rain, it was a perfect opportunity to unpack all of our bags, dry out our things, and take a good long shower.

Because of the cold and rainy weather, we had our first gelato only about a week into the trip!

Ferrara itself was nice, with cute little lanes all throughout the old town and an imposing castle, apparently the largest (and one of the few) in Europe still with a water-filled moat. We also ended up being there on the same day as a marathon, so that added an extra element. For some reason, though, we weren’t quite feeling like living the tourist lifestyle that day, so for much of the day we ended up relaxing at a playground. A bit of a pity maybe, but when traveling with kids, sometimes you need to lower your expectations a bit from how you did things before.

A word on coffee

One of the biggest highlights of the trip was the delicious Italian coffee. Always close, always cheap, always delicious. Riding through the first sleepy town of the day? Stop at the local bar, generally the neighbourhood hub, and grab your first coffee of the day along with a sweet brioche (kind of like a croissant, usually always filled with jam or custard or something else sweet). Ordering a pizza to bring to a playground for lunch? Get a quick coffee while you wait. Need to use the washroom? Might as well get a coffee for €1.20 and not leave empty handed if they’re gonna want to almost the same anyways just to use the bathroom. At a playground? Surely a coffee can’t be more than a 2 minute walk away.

How many coffees did we (especially Elliott) drink per day? We don’t even want to know.

Florence

Florence is truly one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. It’s the heart of the renaissance. It’s full of wonderful art and stunning architecture. And by some cruel twist of fate, Lisa had never been there before. So while the main goal of the trip was to have a great time with our family, the secondary goal was to make sure Lisa got to see Florence.

From Ferrara, we rode south to Bologna. There is a mountain range between Bologna and Florence, and while we considered spending a couple of days trying to conquer it by bike (with two children and camping gear, remember), we decided we’d rather spend that time relaxing instead… so we took an easy train over the mountains in a bit over an hour instead!

Much to our chagrin after arriving in Florence, the lovely campsite Elliott had stayed at about a decade ago had closed down, and the only one remaining in or reasonably near the city was a horrible mass-tourism type of place beside a loud military barracks charging about €50 a night just for the privilege of pitching a tent 2m beside the next one. While Italians don’t really always “get” the whole tent camping concept, this one was exceptionally bad. No thanks! Instead, we ended up finding a small suite in a lovely old villa just outside of the town center. And since we had bikes with us, the little bit of distance we had to ride along the river to get into the centre was no problem!

Since it was Lisa’s first time in the city, she left the kids with Elliott for a while so she could take it all in without having to deal with things like kids trying to run in front of cars, eating rocks off the ground, etc. So what did Elliott and the kids do? Daddy-kiddo day! Tripe sandwiches, horsemeat baby food, and tons of fun!

Meanwhile, Lisa got to take in things like walking tours, museums, an epic rain storm, and even a coffee and brioche all to herself without having to share with a snotty little goober begging for a bit. And in the end, we both had a great time!

We also spent some time in the city together as a family, including checking out the inside of the famous duomo (honestly, not really worth the wait… the outside is better) and a visit to the lovely little rose garden up on the hill on the south side of the river looking out over the historic center. So lovely!

The Tuscan hills

After a few lovely days in beautiful but busy Florence, we then headed about 40 kilometres southwest of the city to a tiny little farm with a few campsites that Lisa had discovered. As we rode through under the sun through the Tuscan hills (some of them steeper than they look!), the smells of roses and sweet, dry grass accompanied us along with the sounds of birds and lizards scurrying out of the way as we rode past. When we got hot and tired, our daughter gleefully treated us all to some ice cream with €10 she had found on the the ground the day before, including a little conini for her little brother — his first very-own ice cream!

Once we conquered the very final (And very steep, graveled, slippery, hot, exhausting) hill to the campsite, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Compared to the camping dystopia on offer in Florence, it was just an active family farm with olive trees and grapevines, plus a few little spots to pitch a tent or park a camper. Best of all? It had a little play apparatus, plus a lovely view. It couldn’t have been more perfect for us!

Our mornings and evenings were spent enjoying the lovely view right from our little table in the shade or playing together as a family, and we two parents even got to enjoy a home-cooked meal with olive oil and (multiple!) glasses of wine produced on that very farm. As our kids found all sorts of things to play with, we actually got to have a few moments to ourselves to talk, take a look around, or even just stare at the sunset and contemplate life. It was sublime.

During the day, we dared to venture down the big hill only to have to ride up it again (much easier with the luggage off… and when one kid gets out to walk!) and visited some local towns in the area, including Vinci, the birthplace of the famous Leonardo da Vinci.

After a few nights and days of full vacation-mode relaxation, it was finally time to make the long journey by train back home, first with a one-night stopover in Bologna (also a lovely city with fantastic history and food!), and then another marathon 13 hour train trip from there to Berlin… but with bellies full of Italian delights, minds full of art and history to contemplate, souls filled with warmth and relaxation, and two excellent travel kiddos, it was a piece of cake getting back home!