Breaking Away

Yet another dream come true as we’ve been cycling through Italy for about a week. It’s even more of a “biking culture” than I expected, and I had to swallow my urge to say “ciao bella!” to every bike rider who passed by – like the guy in that 70’s movie Breaking Away. Yes, I dreamed I saw Team Cinzano in every group we passed – apologies to anyone who doesn’t get that movie reference. But the good news is that the bike routes are great, and (contrary to what I expected), the Italians (at least the Northern Italians) seem to be very careful and courteous drivers. We had a bit of trouble finding our way as we left the campsite in Venice – and for the whole first day for that matter – but got on the right track after a while. We passed Treviso without going into the old town for a peek (too stressed and tired) and spent the night in a nice little hotel (no campsites in the area) in a small town. The next day, the ride was much more straightforward, and more beautiful, although the route did follow a fairly busy road. We stopped in Feltre- a beautiful old city - and looked for a place to stay, but finding nothing that lived up to my standards (and limited budget) we carried on to Fonsazo, which was a smaller, cuter town, with a decently priced (50 Euro) and charming hotel.

The next day, the ride got immeasurably more beautiful and peaceful. We rode along bike paths and quite country roads, through narrow valleys and along a rushing river (the River Sugana Valley). Hopefully, the pictures – YES, THERE IS A LINK TO THE LEFT! – will do it justice. We were exhilarated and exhausted as we arrived in Lago Caldonazzo and found our campsite. I’d like to say that I was so tired that I didn’t notice that it was SO COLD AT NIGHT, and particularly in the morning. But obviously we survived.

The next day we set off for Trento, and my map was less clear about how to get there. Apparently, a new bike route is planned, but in the meantime, there is a hilly, not-so-clear route from Pergine to Trento. But at least it was much hillier (uphill, that is) going the other way, although it nearly did us in. We found our “campsite” outside of Trento, which turned out to be a one-star hotel that had a back yard…right up against the train tracks. At least there weren’t too many trains during the night, and we did have our privacy, if we lacked hot water. And, the Albergo (hotel) had a nice little bar where we had a couple of glasses of red wine. Nice.

For a complete change, we rode along a flat bike path that followed a river to Bozen (Bolzano) in South Tirol – the German-speaking part of Northern Italy. We found our campsite and WOW, what a difference. They actually have four-star campsites – with soft music playing in the sparkling clean bathrooms! And you pay….20 Euros for the two of us. And somehow, the ground is just as hard as it was in the last campsite. Anyway, we stayed there, in Bozen, for two days while we decided whether to ride our bikes up over the alps or take the train (this was the last junction) over the two mountain passes. Given the state of our bikes (my brakes, Matthias’ gears) and the load we were carrying, we decided to take the train. First, though, we took a side trip to Meran (Merano), a lovely spa town where we got new brakes and gear adjustments

Which brings us to today, when we took a series of trains to Austria, over the Brenner pass, through Innsbruck (and part of Germany) to a small Alpine town called Bichlbach (in Austria) where we found a great room for 30 Euros. And I mean a GREAT room – I’ve been looking at the Alps through my window all evening. Also, I recommend the train ride for anyone who’d like to see the area without driving – it’s absolutely spectacular! So anyway, we’re at about 900 meters high, and although the rest of the ride is technically “downhill”, we’ve still got some climbing to do to get out of here.

Again, I hope the pictures do the ride justice. There is a link to the left. Ciao!