View Larger Map
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
No comments:
Post a Comment