Oh, how beautiful Italy is! It is wonderful when someone on the road in Val Dolina responds to our greeting ‘Ciao’. Shortly afterwards, we leave Slovenia and roll into Italy.
Wonderful! Trieste lies ahead of us and makes our hearts leap.
The friendly person at the tourist information office is probably a cyclist himself. After eight weeks, this is the first tourist information office that has provided us with useful information on how to get further north. On EuroVelo (EV) 8, we encounter many cyclists with and without luggage. Once again, we are the wrong-way cyclists… and we do not regret it one bit. The days are so unbearably hot that we consume more liquid than solid food. Cool nights in the mountains: here we come.
The Graphhopper Routing Library has guided us well so far. Now we come to the Alps, which we want to cross from east to west. For the best Alpine route, we enlist the help of our friend Otfrid Altfeld, our AI (Altfeld Intelligence), who knows almost all the mountains and passes in the Alps. That works really well. It is a route we would not have found with AI. Via Udine, we first head to Friuli, towards the Carnic Alps.
There is still space available for cyclists with tents at the excellent Natura campsite by the lake. Here we meet many outdoor sports enthusiasts, cyclists, motorcyclists and canoeists. A large group of para-athletes is spending the last long weekend here before the high season start. They are friendly, open-minded people with time for a chat. The surrounding mountains give us a hint of what lies ahead.
It is getting mountainous. The Adriatic Sea is quickly receding behind us.
In Santo Stefano di Cadore, we have one last espresso before setting off on Otti’s route to Lago di Misurina in the ‘Three Peaks National Park’. Now there is more climbing than cycling. We take photos of dozens of peaks, repeatedly assuming that they are the ‘Three Peaks’. We probably did not even catch sight of the real peaks.
Road signs announce Cortina d’Ampezzo, Sesto and all the legendary ski resorts.
Then we leave Bella Italia and roll into South Tyrol. The next day we continue to Bruneck and Brixen. You will not find any weird neighbourhoods here. Our destination for the day is Bolzano, an exciting city with Italian flair. The people here are much more open than in the tourist spots we left behind. We spend the night in an apartment in a residential area. The Bar Jolly is our evening and morning haunt. The owners are happy to see strangers stopping by. They serve beer with sandwiches and snacks. We also visit the locals’ ice cream parlour instead of having dinner.
Merano and on towards the Reschen Pass. Cyclists of all kinds, with and without luggage, come towards us in hordes. Who else cycles the Alps from south to north? Onwards through the Puster Valley and along the Eisack.
We are still amazed at how many different landscapes, sights, countries and cities we pass through in just a few days. We pedal up mountains that seemed almost impossible to reach just a short time ago. The bicycle is a great means of transport!
We skip the first campsite in Val Müstair, Switzerland, and take the rocky path, climbing a little further uphill to pitch our tent at the pretty little Pé da Munt campsite in the middle of the forest, where spirits, fairies and foxes live. We are given a warm welcome. Apart from the friendly motorcyclist and former amateur cyclist from Regensburg, we have not made many new acquaintances this week. What do you do in that situation? You unexpectedly bump into familiar faces from Marburg in the furthest corner of Switzerland at the campsite.
We spend the evening chatting with Barbara and Udo around the campfire with a beer, crawl into our sleeping bags, and look forward to tomorrow’s rest day.