20 years ago today - Day 181

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Saturday, August 31st - St. Lorenzen to Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy - 10,294 km


It was a very peaceful night, a bit cool at this higher altitude, but my sleeping bag is good for temperatures down to zero. I feel very refreshed waking up on the floor of this open sided barn. Shreds of mist are clinging to the mountain sides in the distance. The morning air must be good for Jochen and Mathias too, because they are up packing their tent and getting their camp stove lit to make coffee.

There is still no sign of the farmer. At this point all we could do is thank him and reassure him that we haven’t moved anything from its place. But we complete a breakfast of fruit, coffee and cereal, rinse out and pack our dishes and push off
before we see him. We leave St. Lorenzen and continue our slow climb to the headwaters of the Gail River. We are at 1100 m here and the pass at the end of the Gail Valley is about 1530 m.




The valley is so gorgeous. I am grateful for this perfect weather for this perfect scenery. The distant mountains to the west are pale grey serrated blades aimed at the sky. The rocky, forested gorge of the river is capped above by alpine meadows on softer gradients. The meadows across the river from us looks so inviting, a fairytale setting, but the gorge makes getting there impossible, except by climbing to the top of the valley and back down the opposite side. This was once a ‘hanging valley’ carved by a small glacier that flowed into a larger one, leaving a flat-bottomed, steep sided U-shaped valley behind. The river that replaced the ice has carved this canyon in the middle of the valley floor.

The sun has not yet touched parts of the road we are on. It is cool in the morning shade, in spite of the heat generated by our climb. I am loving it though. I wouldn’t change a thing. The touched up tourist brochures of the Alps fail to capture the extraordinary beauty of this land. It is exhilarating.

An hour and a half of climbing brings us to the top of the valley and the pass into the next valley that will lead us to our first glimpse of Italy. The pass itself is all alpine meadow as we have passed the headwater of the Gail River. The village of Obertilliach is draped over the crest of the pass like a towel over the back of a chair. Little hay barns are scattered around the fields below it as though they might have all rolled down the hill from the town and somehow landed upright.

A breeze from the west greets us as we round the top of the crest. We begin our descent down a long, broad valley of the Gailbach River, a smaller, gentler sibling to its namesake that flow the other way. This one is a little stream that meanders through the meadows, making itself invisible most of the time as we glide down the valley. The grade is gentle enough that we don’t need to brake that often and we only pedal on occasion to give our feet new resting positions.

It is about 15 km to the bottom of the valley, where the Gailbach joins the headwaters of the Drau River, which, since we left Villach, has been flowing in a parallel valley immediately north us. In the last two kilometres of the Gailbach’s course, it drops 300 m into the larger valley of the Drau. It has carved a steep chasm here that the road avoids. The road zigzags back and forth to ease the grade of our drop.


It has only taken us half an hour to reach the Drau from the pass, and we are back down to 1050 m. We turn south-west towards Italy. Four kilometres along we stop in the last Austrian town we will see before the border, Sillian. We find a restaurant with a small courtyard patio off the road and buy drinks and sandwiches. We are neither tired or hungry but we want to enjoy the ecstasy of the valley a bit longer.

Back on our bikes, we make the gentle climb up to the Italian border five kilometres further. When we are asked for our ID I discover that I have left my money belt and passport on the sill of a garden planter in the courtyard of the restaurant. Mathias is particularly unimpressed. I leave them there waiting for me while I race to Sillans and back.. Fortunately, my money belt and passport are still where I left them. This perfect day would have turned into the perfect day from hell if they had been gone.

Fifteen kilometres from the border we reach the headwaters of the Drau. We turn here up a canyon to the south, following a stream that will become the Reinza River that flows south to the Po River. The canyon is narrower and steeper-sided than the Gail Valley, and the mountains are higher. At the end of this stretch of valley stands a particularly dramatic mountain with twin peaks that look like a greatly enlarged version of the cathedral in Chartres, France. It is called the Tre Cime di Lavaredo (three peaks of Lavaredo).

The valley bends to the west away from the Tre Cime as we reach the top of a 1530 m pass. Then it’s downhill for 8 km, a bend to the south again and 7 km more to get to Cortina d’Ampezzo, my first town in Italy. Jochen and Mathias are in the mood for saving money and after last night’s experience they want to camp again.

It is still light but the sun is behind the mountains so we seek out the camp ground to register and set up. It has been a lighter day, just over 90 km and much of that downhill, but Mathias and Jochen just want to hang out in the campground. I am into it too once I find out the campground has some rentable tents set up for unprepared guests. We make ourselves a dinner from the few remaining groceries and relax. Mathias has decided to head towards home after spending tomorrow in this area. If the weather holds out, we want to leave our bags in camp and do a short unloaded tour around the area.


PHOTO 1: where I woke this morning
PHOTO 2: Jochen and Mathias having breakfast
PHOTO 3: the barn where we slept
PHOTO 4: St Lorenzen
PHOTO 5: the Gail River Valley, before the pass
PHOTO 6: looking across the valley to an alpine meadow farm
PHOTO 7: alpine meadows, upper Gail Valley
PHOTO 8: orderly Austrian haystacks
PHOTO 9: alpine village across the valley
PHOTO 10: village of Obertillach at the pass
PHOTO 11: alpine church, looking into the next valley
PHOTO 12: in the valley of the Drau River again
PHOTO 13: approaching Sillian and the Italian border
PHOTO 14: village of Sillian
PHOTO 15: just inside the Italian border
PHOTO 16: the Tre Cime di Lavaredo
PHOTO 17: Cortina d'Ampezzo

20 years ago today - Day 180

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Friday, August 30th - Villach to St. Lorenzen - 10,202 km

Perhaps I showed my disgruntled side too much yesterday, or perhaps just enough. Mathias is up and ready to roll an hour or so earlier today. We wait for him before we cross the Drau River to buy groceries in Villach. The day is warm and pleasant and much sunnier than the broken cloud we had yesterday. The mountain air is
invigorating. It puts each of us in the best of moods. Even if I was tired I would be energized by the weather and knowing we are climber higher into the mountains. Villach’s setting is nice but it will only get better from here.

Villach in built on the Drau (or Drava) River, just upstream from the confluence with the Gail River. The Drau comes from the north-west and the Gail from the west. It is the Gail we will follow from this point so we cycle 5 km south to get into the entrance of the Gail Valley. This is a steep-sided valley and the flat-bottomed floor is about 4 km wide. Gone is the lumpy, undulating plain the Drau has been winding through, and so are the lakes. This is a small river so its valley is narrower and it climbs faster. The road has no choice but to be relatively near the river.

In an hour we have reached the town of Notsch-im-Gaital. By the second hour, we have reached Hermagor. We stop to have make sandwiches for a light lunch here. It is about 2 pm. I ask Mathias how far we will go today and he says we will stop before it gets dark. That satisfies me as I won’t want to miss anything beyond this point.

The valley floor upstream from Hermagor narrows to 2 km but the climb is still gentle. We pedal through the villages of Kirchbach, Reisach and Dellach to get to the town of Kotschach-Mauthen, the last place of any size today. One kilometre west of the town the flat valley floor ends and the road begins a serious climb up the side of a steep V-shaped valley. It has been gentle cycling up to this point, so I don’t mind.

It is 5 pm when we begin this climb. It takes an hour and a quarter to climb the next 15 km to the picturesque village of Lesachtal. Here, the evening is beginning to set in. There is no place to sleep here so we push on three more kilometres to the hamlet of St. Lorenzen. There is nothing here either but farms or ski chalets. We pull into an open-sided hay barn beside the road and decide to call it a day there. I feel a little awkward as we haven’t asked the farmer, but we aren’t sure where the farmhouse is. Mathias and Jochen pitch their tent and I lay out my mat and sleeping bag under the roof of the barn.

It is exhilarating to be making camp outdoors in the mountain air instead of staying indoors. It is far nicer than staying in a youth hostel, even if means no shower tonight. It is the first time on this trip that I have slept outdoors and it feels much freer, much less like being a tourist. I am tired but very happy tonight.


PHOTO 1: Villach
PHOTO 2: Drau River valley in morning
PHOTO 3: Jochen and Mathias
PHOTO 4: Arnoldstein Mountain
PHOTO 5: Jochen
PHOTO 6: the valley closes at Kotschach-Mauthen
PHOTO 7: we begin our climb above the Gail River
PHOTO 8: Lesachtal
PHOTO 9: St Lorenzen at dusk

20 years ago today - Day 179

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Thursday, August 29th - Soboth to Villach - 10,089 km

The morning sky has broken clouds and the air is fresh high up on the mountain. I am up by 8 and eating breakfast half an hour earlier. I am anxious to get going, to
push on towards Klagenfurt, since there is nothing up here but the fresh air, but of course Jochen and I must wait for Mathias to get up. The manager of the hostel is a very nice guy, very accommodating, and he saves breakfast for him. Breakfast includes a boiled egg this morning.

I busy myself writing postcards. I am not sure why I bother as very few people I have written to have bothered to answer. I have been sending weekly updates to my employer, the City of Toronto, sending a postcard to a different member of the department every week. I don't expect cards back from them but I should be getting at least half a dozen at every mailing point instead of just one or two. The next Poste Restante address is in Venice, so I will see how that goes.

Mathias is finally up after 11 and he's ready to roll sometime around 12:30. I keep telling myself that he is fun and that it is better cycling with him and Jochen than cycling alone, but I am a bit frustrated to say the least. The mountain scenery makes it easy to forgive everything though. The road stays relatively level for the first few kilometres until we pass Stausee Soboth, a nearby mountain lake. Then it begins to climb until we are almost at 1400 m. Here the fun begins as we drop down 1050 m to get to the Drau River, the border of Austrian and Slovenia.


We stay on the Austrian side and follow the north side of the steep-sided Drau River valley for 15 km. Then the landscape opens up to a broad rolling valley and our road swings north, away from the river. At the town of Volkermarkt, we move closer to the river again, which at this point has become a lake called the Volkermarkter Stausee. Past the town we get some pleasant views over the long, narrow lake from 100 m above. Then the road moves away from the river again as we continue west.

We stay fairly closely together, never getting more than 100 m or so ahead or behind. Jochen and Mathias believe in cycling together, unlike my former companion
Mike. But our late start has its toll. Today we are covering more than 125 km and there isn’t enough time to do that between 1 and 6 pm. Twenty-five kilometres beyond Volkermarkt, we reach the only city on today’s route, Klagenfurt, which has about 90,000 people.

It is already past 6pm when we enter the city and Mathias wants to push on to Villach, another 45 km further west, which means riding into the night. I have the energy, because 125 km is no longer a difficult stretch for me, but we are entering a mountainous area and I have been really interested in seeing the scenery. I gripe about this to Mathias, but he is from south Germany and not too interested in familiar scenery. It’s mostly cloudy anyway, he says to console me.

The last pictures I can take are beside Worthersee, the long lake immediately west of Klagenfurt. We are following a winding road above the south shore of the lake. The land is mostly dark now, with the sky reflecting on the water as though the light was coming from the lake itself. At the hamlet of Maria Worth, on a small romantic promontory jutting out into the lake, there is a late-Gothic church begging to be adored. Beyond this point, it is too dark to take more pictures.

There are two more hours of cycling as the glow in the sky fades to black. I am totally dependent on Mathias and Jochen staying close in front and behind me now, as I have not brought good lights for night cycling. Riding in the dark is slower and more dangerous. It is foolish, I tell myself, but I don’t get too worked up about it. I worry that the youth hostel will be full when we get there, or that the office will be, which will be just as bad.

We arrive in Villach around 9 and my worries prove to be unfounded. I am pretty tired by this point, having started my day four hours before we set off cycling. I just want a shower, something in my stomach and a little relaxation before saying good night. We make a picnic-styled dinner in the hostel after our showers and chat with a few other residents. The hostel is quiet overall and is set out far enough from the centre of Villach that I opt not to go for a walk.


PHOTO 1: Jochen and I is Soboth dorm
PHOTO 2: part way down the mountain
PHOTO 3: valley of the Drau River that flows to Slovenia
PHOTO 4: rainbow over Drau River Valley
PHOTO 5: Volkermarkt
PHOTO 6: Jochen and I cycling together
PHOTO 7: approaching Klagenfurt
PHOTO 8: statue of Bernhard von Spanheim in Klagenfurt
PHOTO 9: near Worthersee
PHOTO 10: St Maria Worth
PHOTO 11: Mathias and Jochen, arriving at the hostel in Villach
PHOTO 12: Jochen, Mathias and I at the hostel

20 years ago today - Day 178

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Wednesday, August 28th - Graz to Soboth, 9961 km

It is hazy to sunny today. We are planning to head south-west to a youth hostel in the mountains in a village called Soboth. But of course there is the matter of getting Mathias up at a reasonable hour so we can cover the eighty or so km to get there. Jochen and I saunter around Graz for an hour or so, which I don’t mind since it is such a lovely city.

We get Mathias up and moving a bit easier than the past two mornings, and we are on the road by 11:30. Mike, my cycling partner during the first three months of this trip, doesn’t seem all that bad in comparison. We don’t want to tease Mathias too much though or he might set a hard pace for us once he does get going. Seriously, I am not that concerned. They are both fun and good company.

We set off heading south to Seiersberg, and then angle south-west through Pirka and Lannach. There are three small hills between them but beyond Lannach it is a constant series of rolling hills for the next couple hours. We stop at a park in Stainz that has picnic tables and make a picnic lunch. These guys are full of laughs, especially Mathias who can joke about anything. Jochen is the sweetest, most thoughtful guy, but quieter by nature. He is more smiles than laughs.



We set out again, more southward than westward. We are gradually moving closer to a real mountain range to the west. We reach the foot of that range at Hollenegg. The Schloss Hollenegg is set on a hill above us as we pass. Our road weaves back and forth at the base of the hills for another fifteen km until we turn west onto another road, Hwy 69 (!!), at the village of Aibl. Hwy 69 climbs steadily into the mountains from 400m at Aibl until it reaches a pass at 930m. As we climb the mountain we climb into the clouds.


At the pass we encounter at checkpoint for the Austrian army. We stop for a break and talk to the soldiers. They tell us they are there mostly to reassure the citizens of the area that there will be protection from incursions by Yugoslav forces over the border into Austria. Apparently, when Slovenia has declare
independence from Yugoslavia in June the Yugoslav army moved in menacingly. Austria, which has long historical ties with Slovenia, cautioned the Yugoslavs to leave it alone and the Yugoslavs retaliated with threats of punishing Austria. Since Austria is neutral (not part of NATO) and has a much smaller army, the threat is ominous indeed.

This is Soboth, at 1050m. It isn't much of a village. The youth hostel is set out in a field a couple hundred metres off the road. It has an incredible view of the valley below to the south-east. The light is already fading towards nightfall so our timing is perfect. Because this hostel is so out of the way there is plenty of room for us. There are only a couple other guests at present. We make our dinner in the kitchen and spend the evening playing cards and talking. There is not to do out here. Just before bed, the three of take a walk up to the highway and back to look at the stars. It is truly beautiful here. The scenery gets better the further we go. I can't wait to get into the real Alps in a day or so.

I have crossed the 10,000 km mark of my tour today


PHOTO 1: Mathias and Jochen in Graz
PHOTO 2: Mathias and Jochen, having our picnic lunch
PHOTO 3: this lovely part of Austria is known as Styria
PHOTO 4: orderly Austrian farms
PHOTO 5: Schloss Hollenegg
PHOTO 6: talking with soldiers at the checkpoint
PHOTO 7: fog
PHOTO 8: Mathias in pink
PHOTO 9: Soboth youth hostel

20 years ago today - Day 177

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Tuesday, August 27th - Furstenfeld to Graz, Austria, 9875 km

It’s a leisurely morning, another day of sunshine. We have covered about two-thirds of the distance from Keszthely to Graz yesterday so today will be much lighter. I am up and showered by 8:15 and Jochen is not far behind. We head for the kitchen in the youth hostel to have our continental breakfast. Jochen puts and couple rolls and pads of butter and jam in his pocket for Mathias, knowing he will not make it down before breakfast ends at 9.

We return to the dorm to drop off the rolls. Mathias is still asleep with his back to the world, his blond hair pointing in many a tortured direction. Jochen suggests we go for a walk. It is still a bit cool, the way I like it when I am building up a sweat cycling. It’s the perfect time of day, before all the shadows are gone from the road and the traffic increases, but I let that go because I know it will at least an hour before Mathias will be ready. We stroll around the three blocks that comprise Furstenfeld’s business centre, and then find a sunny bench to relax on in the main square.

Jochen asks about my trip in a way that I can tell he is imagining going such a trip himself. Jochen says many Germans boys find a best friend and stay loyal to that friendship from kindergarten to university. He and Mathias have been friends since his early school days, spending the summers together with various members of their families. Since they were seventeen, they have spent most of their free weekends and holidays alone together, cycling, hiking and going to another town together. They left their town in south Germany two weeks ago a similar route to mine. I might have run into them at any point along the route other than Keszthely.

Mathias has to return home in a week’s time. Jochen could stay longer but he doesn’t want to travel by himself. I guess that’s where I fit in. I tell Jochen I am headed for Venice and he likes that idea. Maybe I can join you, he suggests. Sounds good, I say. Let’s just see how the next few days unfold.

With our minds still fantasizing about Venice, we return to the hostel to rouse Mathias. He is awake when we find him, or at least he is sitting up on the bed eating the rolls Jochen left for him, looking a little disoriented like a bear coming out of hibernation. From this point, it’s like a play in slow motion. He takes a couple hours to be comfortably ready to cycle. By then it is past noon. We have a lunch of bought sandwiches before we head off.

Jochen and Mathias cycle at a steady moderate pace with few breaks, much the way I cycle when I am alone. Even still, there are always things one must get used to when cycling with others, other than our start times. They are both more considerate than Mike was, and more communicative, but Mathias has a nasty habit of blowing his nose while cycling. When I have been following him closely, his spray often lands on my face and glasses. This is not easy to get used to.

The first half of the day, done in full on afternoon sun, takes us to the end of our gently climbing valley. There are a couple hills to cross to drop into the next valley to the town of Gleisdorf. Here we have cloud cover for an hour or so, but the town is quaint, pristine and colourful even without the sun. Gleisdorf sits at a confluence of three valleys. We take the valley of the Rabnitz River to Brodingberg, and then begin a climb over a 200 m ridge that separates us from Graz. The sun comes out again while we are climbing, but once over the ridge we only need to coast or pedal lightly to take us the last 15 km into Graz.


Even with our late start, we are into the centre shortly after 5. We find the hostel, check in, find the tourist office and walk around the centre. It is a photogenic town with cobbled streets, storybook houses and commercial buildings and marketplaces. A small spire of a mountain juts up right by the core. Once the site of a castle, it now houses a clock tower that has become the symbol of Graz. Jochen and Mathias climb the massive, switch-backing staircase to the tower, but I opt to poke around the shop windows instead. A woman at the tourist office tells us that this is the home town or Arnold Schwarzenegger. I suppose that is better than advertising their enthusiastic reception of Hitler after he took control of Austria.

In spite of Mathias’s nose blowing, I think the three of us are getting along famously. It has been a light day, only 65 km, but after three full days, that’s a pleasant change.













PHOTO 1: country road, ideal for cycling
PHOTO 2: Gliesdorf, half-way to Graz
PHOTO 3: foothills before reaching Graz
PHOTO 4: clock tower on hill overlooking Graz
PHOTO 5: Graz market square
PHOTO 6: Haupstrasse, where our youth hostel is
PHOTO 7: former townhouse of Archduke Ferdinand
PHOTO 8: early evening in Graz
PHOTO 9: Jurgen and I at youth hostel