where the bikes are

On Saturday we ventured back into what is quickly becoming one of our very favorite regions of Italy: Emilia Romagna. It took about two and a half hours to get to Ferrara from Milan and once we were there the time flew by as fast as the bicycles.

And bicycles are, in fact, one of the great parts of this region. Because it's so flat and because traffic has been restricted to control pollution in this historic UNESCO World Heritage Site, the residents find that a bicycle can be their best friend.

The only time of day when the city center isn't teeming with cyclists is during the lunchtime hour. And then the city isn't teeming with anyone. Let me warn you now, Ferrara seems to like its lunch breaks long. Most stores were closed from 12:30 to 4:00pm which is a languid lunch even by Italian standards.



Before lunch we stopped in a bike repair shop and spoke to the owner at length. Surrounded by tangled rounds of inner tube and thin silvery spokes, he informed us that Ferrara is second only to Amsterdam in the number of bicycles filling the city. I don't know if you've been to Amsterdam but I have and I can tell you it's a pretty big place with lots of room for bikes. Ferrara, however ... not so big. And it shows. You can't take a step in any direction without running into something bicycle-related.



And it's glorious. You've never seen so many beautiful old bikes. So many old people on bikes. Signs saying "don't park your bike here," and people parked against their bikes.



And once you start eating in Ferrara - which for us happened nearly immediately - you realize it's a good thing so many people are pedaling around all day. The food is amazing but it's not what one might term "light." At lunch, the restaurant owner, in acknowledgement of the fact that heaving plates of mashed potatoes covered in traditional stew might not be on order for a 95 degree day, offered to serve us an amended half portion. We accepted. It was, however, too late to change my full order of polenta with funghi -- oh, the perils of dining in Italy.



Aside from eating and biking there are some very pretty churches to see and also a late fourteenth century castle, surrounded by a moat, standing smack in the center of town. You can also visit Casa Romei, the home of a nobleman finished in mid-1400. As you walk through the two-storied structure with its frescoed walls and intricate wooden ceilings it's easy to forget this was all built well before Columbus set sail.

And speaking of travel, we were talking with the owner of the bike shop about his favorite places in Italy. He recommended his honeymoon destination, Umbria, saying that it was the most beautiful region of Italy he had ever seen. Other than that, he said, he didn't know where we should go. He had never been south of Rome.

We neglected to ask if that's because he only travels by bike.