Day 10 – Chilling out

The most common way of ordering wine by glass in Austria is per “the eighths”. Meaning 1/8 liter. When planning trips, we tried to go by 80 km per day. Thus each 10 km meant for us an eighth. For the most days we manage to ride 10 eighths or more. But for the remaining two days, we assumed dissipation of our strength. Thus, we decided to chill out and go easy. So today it was just seven eighths from Rovigo to Padova.

“The bridge is closed”, tells us a local man.
“That’s fine. We are not taking the bridge.”
“But then you need to take the gravel road”, he replies
“We like it.”
He shakes his head. Even more when he learnes that we are not taking the shortest way to Padova. But I do not know how to explain to the concept of the eighth. And that gravel is so much preferred to the heavy traffic roads.  he wishes us luck in the end.

The calming gravel roads
Reaching the river Adige for the second time. Muddled compared to her sister Po just a few miles south.
The total calm of the surroundings is disturbed only by these water cannons. The countryside is interwoven with irrigation channels  to bring the water as close as possible to the fields. It feels sometimes like cycling through the Netherlands.  Well, apart the heat and the low density population.
Though calendar-wise it is sill the spring, here in the south, the harvest has already started
Arches and archways providing the so much needed shade
Padova would deserve 1000 pictures. With apologies, I post just one. But if you want, let me know and I can send you many more:)
Yes, there might be short ways from Rodrigo to Padova, but these chilling seven eighths (or 72 km to be specific) were absolutely worth it

Posted on 13.06 2026 at 16:53