Twenty Four Days by Land and Sea - Stopping for Lunch... Occhiobello

We have been so fortunate weather-wise on our trip.  Every day we have stopped somewhere, the weather has been beautiful so having a bit of rain, thunder, and lightning between Greve in Chianti and Venezia (Venice) wasn't going to rain on our parade.  How many days do you get to drive past Siena, Florence (Firenze) and Bologna on the way to Venice?

Not a bad 3 hour drive

The drive from Tuscany included lots of tunnels through lots of mountains.  You know you've been in a long tunnel when your GPS, having lost its satellite signal for several minutes starts telling you to turn left in the approaching traffic circle?

Just about an hour out of Venice, halfway between Bologna and Venice, the lunch bells in our car rang so we started looking for a town where we could find a restaurant for lunch.  One of the wonderful things about Italy is you can always find a good restaurant regardless of where you are.  We had just crossed the River Po when we saw a clock tower indicating we were approaching a town of decent size -- the next exit said, "Occhiobello" so we pulled off the Autostrada (freeway or more accurately toll road) and started nosing around the town looking for a likely restaurant.  It took about five minutes before we saw a little brown sign indicating a restaurant.  We made a turn or two and ended up on the east bank of the river Po looking at a pretty full parking lot with a bridge leading to two houseboats floating on the river -- Il Mulino Sul Po.  Il Mulino sul Po

Don't be put off by the low Trip Advisor rating  -- their overall rating is pulled down by Italian ratings - Italians have much higher expectations than Americans or other Europeans (there are only 4 non-Italian reviews and the Non-Italian ones average out pretty high)

Restaurant entrance on the river Po

When we entered, we were wondering...  But as soon as we entered the main dining area and saw all the Italian guys with plates piled high with Mussels, Calamari rings and the like, we knew we would be just fine.  Our waiter who spoke passable English explained the 7 courses which we could back up by looking at the wall that laid out each course and the 24 Euro price.  After switching out the three bottles of wine on our table -- one sparkling and two white - for three bottles of red wine, we started eating and laughing - all the time looking at panties, various currencies, business cards, and graffiti on the walls and ceiling - clearly a place to let your hair down so to speak.

After starting with our buffet appetizers, we didn't stop eating, drinking and laughing for two hours.  Makes you wonder how much work gets done in the afternoons around here.  Fortunately, we only had another hour's drive to Venice.  After gorging at lunch, we ended up having pizza for dinner - we were still stuffed 4 hours later.  Our lunch experience was so typical of the reason why we like to travel - you never know what you're going to find around the corner or in the next small town.