The tour group wasn’t meeting until the afternoon, so we had time to pop into Venice again in the morning. This time we took the first vaporetto stop at the botanic gardens, to check out an area of Venice we hadn’t seen before. It was quite nice, much less crowded and touristy. We stopped in at a workshop of ceramic artisans, and found a wonderful vegetable market run off a boat in one of the canals.
Returning to Lido, we met up with the tour group. Rosita was the leader, and the only paid guide (as far as we could tell). There were also a number of Italian volunteers who were part of CCE’s exchange program, as well as Bud, our friend who’d organized the tour.
The bikes were mostly identical flat-bar hybrids, but two of us (myself included) had requested road bikes. They were all reasonable, but because there were so many people, and Rosita was the only mechanic, it took quite a while to get all the seats adjusted, and our name tags and turtles installed. (One of the signatures of the tour was the turtle squeezy horn that everyone got).
After we were all outfitted, we went for a ride around the island. The west end, where we were staying, is mostly landfill, probably connecting what used to be a set of sand bars. It’s all very flat and straight, with no cross-traffic, so we had long stretches of riding in single file, following the wheel in front of us. On the seaward side it was quite windy, and we had a few sections of gravel path, and even a little bit of singletrack. This gave us practice riding as a group, which was a bit challenging because of our wide range of skill levels.
We finished our loop of the island, and continued on to one of the marinas, where they’d set up a tent for apertivi (pre-dinner drinks). In the south we’d learned about the Aperol Spritz, which is a typical apertivo: Aperol, prosecco, and seltzer water with an orange slice. Fresh and tart, this would become the drink of the trip for us.
After enjoying snacks and a beautiful sunset, we headed back to the hotel for fuel up for our first big day tomorrow.
