20 years ago today - Day 187

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Friday, September 6th - Venice to Udine - 10,711 km

The morning is cooler than yesterday, not foggy but with broken cloud. Part of the coolness is the wind, which is coming from the north. I share breakfast with Lee Ling and Jochen one last time. They are both concerned for me but not talking about it much. Lee Ling is not as up on her European politics as Jochen, but she has caught his concern.

The best thing is just to leave after a quick goodbye. I am back at the train station collecting my bicycle and loading on my bags. Next, I am on the Ponte della Liberte smelling the stench from the Veneto Lagoon and blowing flies away from my face. In Mestre, I turn to the east towards Udine. I have a headwind on the causeway but it becomes a crosswind after I turn.

For the first 15 km or so the road stays near the lagoon. I get whiffs of the stench of the algae in the water and the air is heavy with humidity. My route is ultra-flat. There is no scenery worth photographing. Between me and the Adriatic is mostly marsh and to my left mostly farmland. The road begins to pull away form the lagoon so the smell disappears, but I am surrounded by many smaller inland marshes around San Done di Piave. A few kilometres later, the marsh gives way to flat farmland near Ceggia.

I am blessed with an expressway that parallels my route and siphons off most of the serious traffic. With no reason to stop and a peaceful route I get into a meditative pattern of cycling, a quasi-trance state with an even cadence, allowing the scenery to unfold gradually around me without paying it much mind. It gives me a chance to worry about what I am doing, but I do my best to prevent that. Worries are usually unfounded, I reassure myself.

I stop for lunch in Portogruaro, the only sizable town between Venice and Udine. I rest for twenty minutes in the Piazza della Repubblica, which has a town hall that looks vaguely like the Alamo. Like every town in this area, including Udine itself, the guide book has nothing to recommend seeing. I am grateful that there are no reasons for tourists to be here.

The expressway continues east on its way to Trieste, but I head north and then north-east on a more direct side roads to Udine. It is set back 40 km north from the Adriatic. There is another expressway that links Udine with this one, and even though that route is longer expressway traffic prefers expressways leaving my route quiet. I have more of a headwind now. The short bit of sunshine that emerged in Portogruaro is gone again and the cloud cover is thickening.

At 4 pm, I cross the Tagliamento River, which looks more like a long lake, and follow a straight, diagonal road that passes through Codroipo and Campoformido to arrive in Udine around 6. The early September days are fading by this point. I look around the city but find no signs for a tourist office and no indication that there is one. Finally, an Italian city not worthy of tourism, but that leaves me searching for a reasonable hotel on my own.

The local men are out cruising around and around in their cars, blaring music and trying to look hot in this go-nowhere town. Others stop to preen themselves in shop windows. Their relative good looks are compromised by their vanity. They walk around in small packs with their arms around each other expounding their prowess and checking out the packages of their competition. Andres taught me the German expression, “Is he really gay, or is he just Italian?”

By 6:45 the only options I have found are business hotels at the equivalent of $100/night. By now the light under the cloud cover is really fading. I cycle to the outskirts of the city and find an unkempt grassy field where the grass is high enough to hide my bike and sleeping bag. Since I have no tent, I will be sleeping in the open. I don’t want locals to know I am here, in the off-chance that someone might try to rob me in the night. I can’t go into town and leave my stuff lying in this field either, so I crawl into my sleeping bag. I read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” (ironically) before the light has totally left the sky. Small flies, mosquitoes and ants pester me and keep me from sleeping for a while. I am woken sometime later in the blackness by a light rain shower. Thankfully it stops and I go back to sleep.


PHOTO 1: Ceggia
PHOTO 2: Portoguaro
PHOTO 3: Portoguaro church
PHOTO 4: Udine Cathedral
PHOTO 5: Udine's Piazza de la Liberte

20 years ago today - Day 186

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Thursday, September 5th – Venice – Day 3

I am still feeling solid about my decision to aim for Slovenia tomorrow morning. I will be leaving Jochen and Lee Ling here, at least for a day or so before they go their separate ways. We gather again at 8 am for our uninspiring breakfast and eviction notices in the hostile cafeteria. Lee Ling wants to see the beach at Lido today. We decide to go early in the day the boats and beaches are crowded and we are tired.

It is foggy in the morning. I had hoped to take more pictures along the Grand Canal that snakes in a big S-shape through the centre part of the city, but they will not turn out well. Our motor launch stops first across from the Piazza San Marco on the island of La Guidecca. The fog is already burning off but the haze adds a veil of mystery to the view.

Lido has none of the romantic charm of Venice itself. It is of course flat and long, a straight European version of Fire Island, one could say. The mist here is mostly gone but the beach is still deserted as we are one of the first motor launches to arrive. We rest here until early afternoon when the density of tourists increases significantly. We enjoy lunch at one of the many boardwalk eateries before catching the motor launch back.

Jochen wants me to reconsider my decision to head for Slovenia tomorrow, in spite of all my considerations about tourists and cycling in Italy. He says he is worried about my safety. I am worried about my sanity if I was to stay here, I tell him. I reassure him I will be very careful and will not enter any place I feel is going to be a danger. I won’t be far from the border at any place, I tell him, and I will make a dash for it if I have to. He remains concerned.

We land on Lido, a sandbar island that separate the Venice Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Venice seems so small from here. It is hard to imagine that it controlled an empire that encompassed most of the ports and trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance periods. I have been in Lisbon, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, all capitals of former empires, and Venice feels the most down to earth.

We spend the afternoon walking around more pedestrian accesses on the main island and over on the San Polo and Castello districts. I am definitely less into taking photographs today than yesterday. There are only so many shots of canals one can take before they become repetitive. I wish there was something to fill my time for the rest of today, something that is not a museum or church. I suppose there are many things to do here listed in my guide book that I haven’t checked out, but I can’t deal with tourists so I keep to the areas of the city with no major attractions.

I am way over budget here. Every day I am spending twice my allowance, which is another reason put up with the bad food and surly service at the youth hostile cafeteria. In the evening, Jochen, Ling Lee and I return to the out of the way area frequented by locals to celebrate our last night together. The music is especially festive tonight, but I am feeling the mild anxiety that always comes before I leave a place I have enjoyed to enter a strange new country. Before we say good night for the last time at the hostel, I take both Jochen and Lee Ling’s addresses. My next poste restante address will be Istanbul. I promise to write to both of them to tell them I have made it there safely.


PHOTO 1: myself, Lee Ling and Jochen at the dock
PHOTO 2: a foggy view of Sam Marco and the Campanile
PHOTO 3: beach at Lido
PHOTO 4: Ca Rezzonico Theatre from the motor launch
PHOTO 5: cargo boats on a side canal
PHOTO 6: pedestrian walkway on the main island
PHOTO 7: pedestrian walkway over the canal

20 years ago today - Day 185

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Wednesday, September 4th – Venice – Day 2

We meet Lee Ling in the hostile cafeteria at 8 am. We are served our daily eviction notices along with our stale bread and jam and watered down coffee. We plan to be out or here well before the 10 am deadline. The hostel can afford to treat their patrons this way as it is the largest and most publicized one in the city. It is always full, populated by train-hopping youths who normally save on accommodation by sleeping on over-night trains, but in Venice they stay for two of three days to take it all in so they need a place to stay. If the hostile was not closed from 10 am to 6 pm, it would likely have been full by early afternoon and we would have had to look for some place more expensive.

Within half an hour of meeting Ling Lee last night, Jochen and I assumed, without discussing it, that she would be spending the next couple days with us. She isn’t that presumptuous but she welcomes our company. I suspect she is as lonely as any other single traveler and I do enjoy the seeing Jochen’s unexpected pleasure at having a woman’s company. I imagine he will be a devoted, loving companion to some woman when he settles down. It is a pleasure to see this side of him.

We set out to do the tourist thing, our maps and guide books in hand. This is the last official week of summer before school resumes and the streets and restaurants are full of tourists. Many of them are obese, with checkered shorts, striped shirts and sandals, their socks pulled up to their shins and wearing loafers. I hear them bickering with their spouses and children over what attraction to see next. Having a nice vacation? I imagine asking them.

We check out the gondolas, thinking it would be lovely to take Lee Ling on romantic fairy book ride, but it costs US$60 per kilometre, either that or a pint of blood I suppose. That extinguishes the romance of the idea quickly. We agree on a cheaper motor launch to the Piazza di San Marco with its famous campanile and basilica. The ride there in the motor launch full of tourists is very slow. The driver explains that he is not allowed to go more than 10 km/hr to minimize the damage to the building from waves. Everything in Venice moves as a snail’s pace, compared to any other city. It is just something one must plan for and get used to.

The motor launch discharges its cargo of passengers at the dock in San Marco. They move en masse towards the piazza. We follow at a slower pace soaking in the sights on all sides. The square is swarming with pigeons and tourists. It is hard to take a photo without being jostled. Perhaps it would have been better to come here at a quieter time of year, but at least the temperature is perfect now.

We pay admission and queue up to climb the stately Campanile, the tallest tower in Venice. After a lengthy wait, we are allowed to enter. I get some amazing shots when I get an opportunity to get by the window sill at the top. When we get back down we take more photos from the ground level. We are surrounded by treasures as magical as Venice’s setting itself, but I am feeling tired and troubled. When Lee Ling and Jochen want to visit the basilica, I tell them I will wait for them at a café nearby.

I am sitting here, on the first day of the second half of my trip, sipping $7 coffee and watching Venice sink under the unbearable load of overweight tourists and their camera equipment. In the time it takes to drink my drink, I watch a thousand others take photos of the same sights that I have just taken. This would be comical on another day but at the moment I feel this is too surreal. Is this what it is all about? Is this what I have come to do, I question myself. What happens to all these photographs and slides these people are taking, tens of thousands of them each day of the same attractions? I imagine they are building up in people’s basements around the world and will be the cause of numerous earthquakes over time.

It realize what is happening to me. I am suffering my worst bout ever of a travelers’ disease known as AFC, which stands for “Another Fucking Cathedral”, or alternately, depending on the situation, “Another Fucking Castle” or “Another Fucking Chateau”. If I could discover this amazing place on a day when it was deserted I would be transported away in awe and ecstasy, but today I wish I had a high-powered water cannon to clean away the insanity of it all.

At the next moment I decide where I will go after Venice. I will head for Slovenia. I am tired of playing the tourist. I want to be somewhere there is some other purpose than visiting tourist attractions. Besides, there are not many youth hostels or small pension hotels in Italy as in other countries I have visited so far, and the few hostels are all set to close on September 15, leaving me no option but to stay in sterile, expensive business hotels.

There won’t be many tourists in Slovenia, if any. Yugoslavia teeters on the brink of war, as it has been doing all summer. I have been following the situation closely. I have always wanted to visit Yugoslavia, especially Slovenia and the Dalmatian Coast, but I gave up on the idea two months ago as the situation became increasingly volatile. There have been sixteen truces signed and broken, often broken the same day as they were signed, but the conflict seems confined to back hills areas of Croatia away from the coast. When Slovenia declared independence in late spring, the Yugoslav army invaded but then finally pulled out without any deaths. It seems that at least that province will be allowed to separate without war. I will decide once I am there if it is safe to enter Croatia.

My decision is both significant and sobering. It makes sense to change the course I am on, or at least to try something different, but it is too onerous to share with Jochen and Lee Ling just yet. I will let it incubate over the next day. I may still change my mind or maybe I won’t even tell anyone if I do go there so that they don’t worry about me.

Lee Ling and Jochen return full of delight over what they saw inside the Basilica di San Marco. I listen and then tell them how much I enjoyed sitting here. I lied of course. We agree to walk around the neighbourhood behind the basilica, following narrow streets to the shops that line the many-staired Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal. They are crawling with tourists. We leave the crowds and save money by walking back to the hostel along the Strada Nova.

I want to lie down but of course there is no entry to the hostel for a couple more hours. We seek out the most obscure passageways on the north end of the island in a district of the city called Cannaregio. We find a quiet street seemingly free of tourists. The only language we here is Italian. What a relief! I only regret that I can’t speak it.

After dinner and a short, constantly interrupted nap in the dorm, Jochen, Lee Ling and I set out to find that same area again. This time we find a bar where the locals hang out. It is all candle light, Italian music and local laughter in the pleasant evening air. I find the courage to disclose to Jochen and Lee Ling that I plan to head for Slovenia the day after tomorrow. My decision is clear now. Are you sure that is wise, Jochen asks me. No, I admit, but I can’t bear being a tourist in Italy any longer. I relate all my concerns and considerations but he isn’t convinced. He has the grace not to question me about it for the rest of the evening. I wish now I had waited until tomorrow to tell them as the news has put a dampener on our festivities. At 10 pm we head back to the our respective dorm rooms to think about it some more.


PHOTO 1: Doges Palace
PHOTO 2: Jochen and Ling Lee in motor launch
PHOTO 3: Piazza di San Marco with the Campanile tower
PHOTO 4: the Campanile from the piazza
PHOTO 5: horses above the square
PHOTO 6: view of the Piazza from the top of the Campanile
PHOTO 7: coming out of the Campanile
PHOTO 8: along the side of the Piazza di San Marco
PHOTO 9: pigeons on the facade of the Basilica di San Marco
PHOTO 10: another shot of the Campanile
PHOTO 11: Torre dell Orologio (Clock Tower) in the piazza
PHOTO 12: the Rialto Bridge

20 years ago today - Day 184

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Tuesday, September 3rd - Castelfranco Veneto to Venice - 10,549 km

I slept well last night. I can’t remember a thing. I suppose three nights of camping in the cool mountain air had me waking up on several occasions so my sleep was not so sound. Also, I haven’t had a day off without cycling for ten days. I have covered from Budapest to here since then. Last night was dead quiet and it still is. It is 8 am and Jochen is waking up after a hard sleep too. We prepare for the road before going downstairs for the hotel’s modest breakfast.

It only 9:30 when we head out. The Po Valley is as flat as a sheet. The most direct route to Venice, 55 km away, is though a small highway that pokes through the towns of Resana, Scorze and Martellago before entering Mestre, the suburb on the mainland. There is a fair bit of local traffic heading into the city for business on this workday. We could have left our trip to the afternoon, when no one in Italy works, but there is nothing to do in Castelfranco Veneto and we are anxious to see the city ourselves.

To get to Venice we must cross the Ponte Della Liberte, a two kilometre long causeway that serves for road traffic as well as the train. It runs straight as an arrow, right into the morning sun. There are many trucks and cars going both ways. There is a segregated bike path but we are bother by thousands of flies. I don’t know what type they are. They are large and somewhat delicate like mosquitoes, but they don’t bite. They just swirl around in frantic circles and smash into our faces, as if they have no ability to fly straight. It is both unpleasant and annoying. The water smells foul too.

Venice is strikingly different from any other city I have been in. The buildings rise right out of the water as though there is no land beneath them. Even Amsterdam, which has many more kilometres of canals than Venice, gives one the impression that the canals are intrusions into the land surface. Here, there are no roads or sidewalks separating the canals from the walls of the buildings. I can just imagine the leakage problems, but that is not one thinks of first. One sees the city rising out of the water like a crystal that has mysteriously grown, something a fantasy writer has created.

The causeway leads onto the northwest end of the islands that comprise the city. The cars, trucks and trains enter a transition point where the everything either converts to pedestrian or water transport. The trucks are channeled onto a long wharf along the outer edge of the island, the cars park or drop-off and turn around. The train only goes half a kilometre on the island to the station. This all sounds rather industrial, but even these areas have their charm.

In any other city with a pedestrian core, our bicycles would be allowed. There are no signs or roadblocks preventing us but there doesn’t need to be. The canals and bridges serve that purpose. This is the most bicycle unfriendly city in the world as riding here is virtually impossible. Jochen and I manage to get to the first bridge over the Grand Canal before giving up. We decide to check our bikes into train station, which my guide book recommends. That requires us to climb 30 steps, carrying our loaded bicycles, to reach the top of the bridge, and then down the far side. This isn’t easy with the stairs filled with distracted tourists.

The storage is expensive but we have no other choice. It will cost us almost as much as our own accommodation. We walk ten minutes to the youth hostel, struggling with our many bags, only to learn that it will not open until 6 pm. It is only 1 pm at this point. We haul our bags back to the train station and pay more to store them for the afternoon.

None of this hassle is too disconcerting because this is Venice and it is totally magical. It is thrill to be here. Jochen is beaming as much as I am. Our first task is find the tourist office and then something to eat. The tourist office is by the train station and it provides us with smiles and maps. We pause at the top of the bridge over the Grand Canal for a few minutes soaking in the scenery. This city is so photogenic that it compels one to take pictures – hundreds of them.

We seek out a café with a sunny patio a distance away from the immediately obvious tourist areas, just to eat, relax and soak in this new environment. Afterwards, we set off exploring the maze of back alleys. I am sure there is a planning department here, much like the one I work for in Toronto, that knows exactly how many islands this city is comprised of, but I cannot figure it out. Mini canals not much wider than a side walk carve up each major island into dozens of smaller ones. Walkways zigzag everywhere between the buildings and hop over the canals with small bridges whenever they encounter one. It is so easy to get lost here, even though you cannot go far in any direction.

Our first afternoon is overwhelming. We managed to find our way back through the maze to the train station in time to collect our bags and get to the youth hostel in time for check in. It is a large busy hostel. I am sure it is run by Austrians as the staff has a way in everything they do to make clear with we are nuisances, not guests. It is a major bother for them to assign us a dorm bed and they are quick to read us the rules and tell us we must be out of the hostel by 10 am. The cafeteria throws their food onto our trays without even a smile. We now refer to this place as a youth “hostile”.

The hostile is full of eager, happy young faces enjoying their special time in Venice. Many of them are appealing young men, but I am with Jochen. I am not lonely, lustful or wanting to connect with another young stranger. Most of them are with their friends too. But there are a few who are alone. The one we have met tonight is Lee Ling Chang, a Malaysian woman in her early 20s. She is pretty, sweet and terribly shy, but brave enough to travel and explore the other side of the world on her own. She approaches us first to ask some questions about Venice, questions we do not yet know the answer to ourselves yet. We ask her about her travel and become fascinated by her. For me, it’s her drive to know the world, her bravery and vulnerability that draw me in. For Jochen, it may be something more. He takes on a nurturing attitude towards her, the first indication that he is in fact straight.

Lee Ling is full of questions about each of us and what we have seen. Her English does not come easily. We strain to listen and ask clarifying questions. That keeps us totally focused on our conversation. The evening is cooler, but still pleasant enough to sit outside at a patio café, so the three of us spend a part of the evening away from the institutional clatter of the hostile, sipping wine. Lee Ling doesn’t drink much so we watch her closely as we walk her back to the hostile afterwards. It has been a wonderful time.

There are intermittent snorers in the dorm room where Jochen and I are sleeping. As I am lying here thinking about this wonderful day and my plans for tomorrow, it occurs to me that I arrived in Lisbon at the start of my trip exactly six months ago. I am at the half way point of my trip. I have no idea where I will go to spend the winter, and not even a clear idea where I will go next, but I have a strong feeling that the second half will be quite different.


PHOTO 1: Jochen with the Grand Canal, theatre behind
PHOTO 2: Jochen of the stairs of the bridge over Grand Canal
PHOTO 3: Grand Canal from top of the bridge
PHOTO 4: more Grand Canal
PHOTO 5: gondolas on a canal
PHOTO 6: gondolas parking on the Grand Canal
PHOTO 7: alley way in Venice

20 years ago today - Day 183

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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

20 years ago today - Day 182

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Sunday, September 1st - Cortina d'Ampezzo - 10,337 km

It’s another fine morning, but a bit sad since Mathias will be leaving Jochen and I after today. It’s a bit cooler as we are in the shadow of the mountains and a bit higher in altitude than last night. We make coffee and eat the last of our fruit and bread for breakfast.

Once the sun has warmed the ground towards 11am, we set out at a leisurely pace to do an unloaded circular route north from Cortina through the Tre Croci (Three Crocuses) Pass, a climb of 600 m, and around to the west to join the road back to Cortina.

It is so liberating to be riding without our 12 kg of baggage. Well, OK, I have one or two kg counting my camera, water, snacks, maps, etc, but the whole feel of the bike is weird when I am used to driving a heavy truck.

The climb is begins right away, though very gently at first. I stop at the base of the steeper climb to snap a shot of the village of Staulin and Mt. Pomagagnon. It is a stead climb for the next six kilometres until we reach the Tre Croci Pass. At 1809 m, it is 275 m higher than the two passes we climbed over yesterday, and the highest of the trip so far. Before Austria the highest I had climbed was over the top of the Massif Central in France at 1350 m. (Day 68).

The pass itself is right below Mt Cristallo but it does not have a dramatic view. It is mostly forested. From here the road drops gently, perhaps 160 m over the next 10 km, and climbing back up to 1750 m at Lago di Misurini on the back side of Mt Pomagagnon. Then the road turns north, northwest and finally west as it rounds the back of the Mt Cristallo and Pomagagnon to join the route we used to get to Cortina d’Ampezzo yesterday.

We have taken a very leisurely pace since the circular route is only 42 km long, and beyond our first arduous climb to Tre Croci Pass, it has been most level or downhill. We rested a while at the top of the pass and again at Lago di Misurini, but it is still only 3pm when we roll back in through Cortina. We park our bikes and walk around but most of the stores are over-priced and stocked with crap for tourists. I suppose Nature always seeks a balance. The most beautiful areas attract ugly development, rampant consumerism and tasteless tourists in their gas-guzzling RVs. If these people ever found an unspoiled paradise they would complain that there were not enough “services” set up for their convenience.

We have a dinner in town, our last together. It has been another perfect day and the traffic was relatively light too. We coast back to the campground at the lower edge of town and relax for the evening. Mathias has been fun and obviously he and Jochen are best friends, but it is Jochen with his gentle, considerate nature that I feel closet to. I am happy we will have the next few days alone together. I suspect we will have an earlier start each day too.




PHOTO 1: Jochen and Mathias in Cortina d'Ampezzo
PHOTO 2: village of Staulin and Mt Pomagagnon
PHOTO 3: myself and Jochen at Tre Croci Pass
PHOTO 4: Mt Cristallo
PHOTO 5: Cadini di Misurini
PHOTO 6: Lago (Lake) Misurini
PHOTO 7: Mathias and the ramparts of the Dolomites
PHOTO 8: return to Cortina
PHOTO 9: camping at Cortina d'Ampezzo