What a fabulous surprise of a city Padova is, calm, together, friendly, beautiful and quintessentially italian. Aesthetically beautiful like Bologna with its porticos and Basilicas but lacking the frenetic exhausting nature of larger Italian cities. Tourists may well head straight to Venice 40km away but Padova, is just, well, so likable. We had a leisurely 70km ride from Soave, through dozens of ghost towns, so very vacant it was starting to freak me out. We lef...

I ride to eat, I eat to ride. It's a pretty happy existence. Eating well is important to me, I research good restaurants in much the same way I search for hotels. I want authentic food, passionate owners/chefs/waiters, In much the same way as I would hope to serve food to friends at home. Europe for me is food heaven whether it's the flakiest, light as air, pane au raisin in Paris or a simple mushroom and garlic tapas in Spain. So far though if I'm honest (and wh...