Castles, hill villages and ridge roads

The itineraries of Emilia Romagna have one practical advantage: almost all of them run horizontally, along a band, so you travel them one way and come back the other without retracing your steps. Those below start from the coast or from the Via Emilia and fit into a single day.

The castles of the duchy

Between Parma and Piacenza, on the first hills, there is a whole line of them: Torrechiara with its frescoed rooms, Bardi perched on a red spur, Fontanellato with its moat still full of water, Castell'Arquato, which is an entire village leaning against the slope. They are all within half an hour of one another and the road linking them runs through the vineyards of the Piacenza hills. You set off from Fidenza or Piacenza and come back on the Via Emilia.

The painted villages and the gypsum vein

Above Imola and Faenza the hills rise only a little, but enough. Dozza has painted walls; Brisighella has three fortresses on three pinnacles and a raised street that used to be the donkey stable; the gypsum vein is a long white bar breaking through the green and visible from far away. From a riviera campsite it is a good hour of driving.

The ridge road

Anyone with time can take the road that runs high from one pass to the next: Cisa, Cerreto, Abetone, Futa. It is not a route to be hurried and not every stretch suits long vehicles, but in July it is the best way to cross the region without getting heatstroke.

The delta by bicycle

From the Comacchio lidos you enter the lagoons on embankment roads closed to traffic. The classic ride takes in Comacchio with its bridges, the abbey of Pomposa and the hides from which you watch the flamingos. It is flat, as long as you want it to be and short of shade: start early.