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Monday, September 2nd - Cortina d'Ampezzo to Castelfranco Veneto - 10,492 km
The thought of returning home inspires Mathias to get up by 9 am this morning. He sets about packing the tent which he will take with him. Today he has a thousand metre climb as he heads back into Austria the way we came to cross over a 2500 m pass east of Innsbruck. It will be a long, hard day for him so he wants to leave early.
Jochen and I have a major climb ahead of us too, more than we expected. First we cycle back up into Cortina with Mathias, and stop for breakfast after he leaves us. After we eat, we begin a climb near the top of the town where we first entered, that heads west. There are a couple switchbacks immediately that bring us 100 m above Cortina. The gradient eases over the next two kilometres but then it becomes arduous again as it switchbacks up a steep face.
The road continues to climb for the next ten kilometres, past the base of 2900 m monolith of Tofana di Mezzo to the Falzanego Pass. The pass is just over 2100 m, 300 m higher than the Tre Croci we climbed to yesterday. It sets a record high point for my trip. Unlike Tre Croci, it is above the tree line. It is airy and grassy with outcroppings of white stone. I can feel the air is thinner up here, but not so much that I am short of breath. 
Jochen and I are both grinning as we stop at the top to survey our victory and the stunning views all around us. Across the valley to the south, the sharp matterhorn of Cinque Torre is only slightly higher than our height. Although we have earned this rest, we don’t stay here for long as the wind through the pass chills our sweaty bodies.
As Mike Silk would have said while climbing, “This is going to be really fun to go down!” It is, though a bit to our dismay the fun doesn’t start right away. There is a fork in the road just as the road starts down. The route we have been climbing on cascades in serious switchbacks to the south-west, but the road we want that goes to Bolzano and Trento, actually climbs from here. “Oh no,” Jochen laughs when he checks his map. I am laughing too. If I’m going to set a record I am at the best spot to do it.
The new road, labeled SP24, climbs another 100 m to set my record at just over 2200 m (7350 ft). There is no need to pedal now. For the first kilometre it drops slowly, but then zigzags on a steeper path to the valley floor. But the valley floor is dropping too once we get there. There is no need to pedal for the next hour or so. We sail through the mountain village of San Cassiano (1570 m) to La Villa (1400 m). We turn south again, climbing up through Varda (1500 m), Corvara in Vadia (1550 )and Colosco (1640 m), to eventually reach another pass of 2120 m.
We drop precipitously again, only to level out for a couple kilometres as the road hugs the side of a mountain. Finally, the descent begins in earnest from slightly over 2000 m, switch-backing down the end of the mountainside to the valley floor and continuing to drop through the Val Gardena as it passes by the villages of Selva (1600 m), Santa Cristina (1450 m), Ortisei (1220 m) and though a canyon to Ponte Gardena (500 m).
Here the valley we have been following joins the valley of the Isarco River, which is the route of the expressway A22 down to the regional capital of Bolzano. It’s a busy truck route with a fairly narrow shoulder (anything can be considered ‘narrow’ when dealing with Italian drivers), but the valley is still dropping fairly steeply. We ramp up our speed so the busy traffic is not whizzing by us at a super high speed. With the wind at our backs, we are able to go about half the speed of the trucks. Twenty five minutes later we have covered the eighteen kilometres down to Bolzano (270 m). What a ride!
We stop for lunch here, grateful to have made it this far safely. Bolzano is a pleasant city of 100,000 people. It is 2:30 pm and we have covered 60 km, most of it in the past hour. We still have a long way to go so we buy a sandwich at a convenience store, the only one we find open, and sit in the main square. Then we rejoin he highway to coast down to the next city Trento, which takes us to about 3 pm. We have dropped to 190 m, a continuous drop of 1820 vertical metres from our last pass.
Our present route would take us the Po River Valley just west of Verona, which would be nice to see, but that route would be longer and the traffic is so horrendous we agree to take a side route leading east from Trento. We climb up to 470 m again to get to Pergine Valsugana and Lake Caldenazzo. The valley floor is fairly flat, only dropping gently, but with much less traffic. It stays this way for an hour and a half as we cover another 35 km. The valley narrows to a canyon and drops more quickly but the shoulder is gone too. By the time it empties into the Po Valley we are anxious to look for side roads.
It is hard to gage distances on unmarked mountain roads, and hard to forecast travel speeds, but it has been a fast day. It is 5 pm. We have covered 140 km but Venice is still 80 km away and Padova is 60 km. We must settle on someplace much closer. Jochen wants to get as close as we can though, so we push on through the lovely town of Bassano del Grappa, immediately at the doorstep of the Po, to Castelfranco Veneto which is 45 km from Venice.
There are no stars for Castelfranco Veneto in my Michelin Guide, but I am pleasantly surprised that it is a walled city. But once inside it is rather drab and lacking amenities. It is commuting distance to Venice so I suppose, so people must do much of their shopping there. We do find a pensione with a room for a reasonable price and a store room in which to lock our bicycles. We find a cheap diner and have a pasta meal.
We retire to our hotel room afterwards, since the town is as dead as the moon. It is Monday after all. I have been curious about what would happen when I was alone Jochen. I have been hoping to ignite some intimacy between us as I have had no indication as to whether he is straight or gay and I like him a lot, but if he has any interest in me he isn’t showing it. Besides, we are both quite tired by our long day. We have covered 165 km and we both need sleep.
PHOTO 1: Tofana di Mezzo
PHOTO 2: Passo Falzarego
PHOTO 3: La Puez Odle National Park
PHOT0 4: Santa Cristina Val Gardena
PHOTO 5: the big drop through this valley
PHOTO 6: main square in Bolzano
PHOTO 7: Bolzano Cathedral
PHOTO 8: near Trento
PHOTO 9: Trento's main square
PHOTO 10: Bassano del Grappa
PHOTO 11: Jochen checks the map
PHOTO 12: Jochen at entrance to Castelfranco Veneto
PHOTO 13: entering Castelfranco Veneto
PHOTO 14: Castelfranco church
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