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Treviso to Urbino - Chioggia and Ravenna

September 10 Written September 11-15 and Oct 5 Dear Family and Friends, Today we drove from Treviso, in the north not far from Venice, to the walled city of Urbino, part-way down the boot.  We are now about half-way from home to Lecce, our most-southern stop.  Today's 329 kilometers were done with the top up, not because of rain or weather, but because the scenery was pretty boring.  Not everywhere has Alpine roads. Our first stop was Chioggia, a port city called "Venice's ugly step-sister" by one of our tour books. I don't know that "ugly" is fair, more just "normal sea-port", with the industrial grime that entails. In any event, our stop was pleasant enough.  We found a good parking place, always a challenge in cramped towns, and wandered through the crowded downtown, past businesses and rabbit-warren housing and over and around canals.  We managed two church visits (Basilica San Giacomo and Santuario B.V. della Navicella) and have now started to develop an appreciation for the open spaces of Italian churches, versus the narrow-aisle layout common in Germany.  "Ugly", no, but Chioggia will not overtake Venice for tourism anytime soon. The next destination was Ravenna, which we had hoped to reach just in time for lunch.  The road from Chioggia to Ravenna went along the Adriatic coast, but was about as unexciting as any coastal drive could be.  We were on a two-lane highway, filled with trucks and traffic and the Adriatic remained hidden behind the road-side vegetation and trash.  We confirmed our impression that Italian drivers are crazy.  Passing into on-coming traffic was normal and everyone was just expected to squeeze through.  Posted speed limits ranged from 60 to 90 kilometers-per-hour, but traffic speed was whatever the car in front of you was doing, normally 70 to 120 km/hr.  Road lines and signs were not even considered as suggestions.  I hoped we would survive. Ravenna itself does not give a great impression on the drive into the center, more just as a large farm city.  We  managed to park in a city lot (3-euros-per-day) near the Duomo, the cathedral, and found lunch in a nearby sidewalk restaurant.  Lunch was just a light sandwich, supposedly a local specialty, and it fit for the hot travel day.  After lunch, we explored a bit more and I ended up with the sense that Ravenna warrants much more time than we had allotted.  There is a large pedestrian area and plenty of churches, museums, and squares.  We managed a stop at the "stone carpet" museum, where large mosaic floors from the Byzantine era were on display.  (No photos allowed, but a Ravenna website offers a virtual tour.)  One guide book said Ravenna Byzantine mosaics "are the best-in-the-West". We struggled to get out of Ravenna and back heading toward Urbino.  Italian road sign are challenging and Gertrude-from-Garmin has been wrong often enough in Italy to make us leery of her guidance.  Eventually we were headed south on another two-lane highway, this one filled with pot holes, rough asphalt, trucks, and speeding drivers.  After 30 km of this, we shifted to our first real autostrada and it was a fine modern road, where it was not under construction. The scenery was getting much better; rolling hills covered with fields and farms.  Very "Italian".  The scenery got even more picturesque as we turned west into the hills leading up to Urbino.  The road signs were no better and Gertrude no more reliable, but we were getting close!  Just outside town, we filled our tank with expensive gasoline (1.91 euros-per-liter or $9.40-per-gallon, cash-only), lowered the top, and Marianne took over driving.  She is our designated driver for complicated village entries and keeping the top down makes finding landmarks easier. Sure enough, soon the walls of Urbino loomed above us and we started weaving our way up to the hotel, the Albergo Italia.  The road was narrow, marked with "no cars" signs,  and filled with tourists, students, and everyday people.  Marianne is very good about not hitting anybody or anything, so we drove uneventfully to a temporary parking spot in front of the hotel. We unloaded the car and checked-in before returning the car to the underground parking lot outside of the walls.  (11 euros-per-day).  Nine hours after leaving Treviso, we were ready to settle in to Urbino for a few days.  Another story. John and Marianne

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