Via Romea Germanica Day 82: Polesella - Ferrara

– Ti porto sul Po.
– Oh, sì! È bello? Cosa c'è?
– Le zanzare. 

(- I'll take you to the Po. 
- Oh, yes! What's there? 
- Mosquitos.)

- from Ieri, oggi, domani, film directed by Vittorio De Sica starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni (1963)

This morning I crossed the Po, leaving behind the Veneto and entering a new region, the third on the Via Romea Germanica in Italy: Emilia-Romagna!

The day began with a super-breakfast on the giant table in my room above the parish hall in Polesella. I had gone all the way out to the supermarket on the highway the evening before to get supplies for dinner and for breakfast: protein pancakes with yogurt and a peach, and a chilled cappuccino. All served at room temperature, as I had no fridge or stove - but still delicious!

I walked back across town and up onto a concrete bridge, at least a kilometre long. Now I understand why the Via Romea Germanica web site has an "update" dated 2023 saying the bridge is closed to foot traffic, and proposing an alternate route: technically, you're not supposed to walk in the space between the guard rail and the balustrade at the sides of the bridge - there's a sign saying not to - but practically, you can. It's safer than attempting to walk over the bridge on the road itself, with all the traffic! There's a sign saying "no stopping on the bridge,  even for pedestrians" - so evidently the presence of pedestrians is envisaged? 

In any case, I made it to the other side, into Emilia-Romagna!

It doesn't look much different from the Veneto,  so far!

I followed the cycling track on the top of the embankment of the Po for eleven kilometres, walking on the grass beside the track, which was softer underfoot and allowed me to cut corners in some of the curves. There are off-ramps to various villages along the way, but I didn't take any of them. I was doing a Duolingo lesson to pass the time when a couple of cyclists stopped to talk to me. The mother cyclist took a photo of me with the daughter cyclist. 

Just after this I finally left the embankment at Francolino, and coming into town, just after the church I found the perfect spot for a picnic: a park with benches in the shade, a water fountain, and a small grocery store right across the street! After taking a break here, I walked through the town and began another long, straight stretch, on a cycling path beside the road. When I read in the guidebook, "follow Via dei Calzolai for six kilometres", I thought this was a typo: Via dei Calzolai (shoemakers' way) is a street name you normally find attached to a laneway in a historic town centre, not the kind of street that can be six kilometres long! But here, it is! Fortunately, some of it was planted with shade trees, and there were benches at intervals. 

The cycling route finally turned off Via dei Calzolai to zig-zag into Ferrara, in full sunshine. I was just about to collapse when I passed through an opening in the city walls and found a small café run by 381 storie da gustare, a restaurant in Ferrara operated as a cooperative providing job opportunities for disadvantaged persons. I washed off some of the day's sweat in their washroom and sat down with a cold beer served in an iced glass, and a bowl of crisps. 

Feeling human again, I walked into the town centre to my hostel, Students' Hostel Estense, less than a block from the famous Palazzo dei Diamanti - so called because its walls are faced with 8500 diamond-cut blocks of stone. 

Students' Hostel Estense 

A hostel dormitory with a frescoed ceiling!

I checked into the hostel, where, for the first time, I am sharing a room with other women. It's not a pilgrim hostel, and they are not pilgrims; many of the people staying here seem to be attending a conference, judging from the name tags on lanyards around their necks. 

I showered and put my clothes, towels and sheet sleeping bag in the hostel washing machine. Walking along the Po embankment in the morning, I seemed to have somehow accumulated a layer of black dust, on both my clothes and skin. And in any case, I like to give things a proper wash, in a machine, once a week! Tomorrow I will be taking a day off walking to see the sights, so I have plenty of time and don't have to rush out right away.

Polesella - Ferrara 23 km