Time: 6:00
Distance: 75.9 km
Avg Speed: 12.6 kph
Terrain: uphill slightly
Location: N 46˚ 37’ 44.2”, E 10˚ 27’ 14.2”
We got up with the rest of the early birds this morning. Our campsite in Merano was filled mostly with German pensioners. We were on the same schedule as them for the past couple of days: get up early, eat dinner early, go to bed early. It was nice not to feel left out. The only drawback was the battle for the bathroom in the morning. We rolled out of town around 9:00 am and enjoyed more of that lovely bike path for the next 72 km. The bike path actually came and went today, but the powers that be always routed it on little paved, seldom used farm roads. The only traffic we really saw were farmers taking bins of apples to the packing shed. I am sure they could have done without the cyclists clogging up their operation. We stopped for lunch at a little parking lot area outside of a town for some peanut butter and kiwi sandwiches. I had bought some bread last night that I thought would travel well since it was short, dense and wrapped tight. When I opened it I realized that I had bought a pretty strong rye bread. We were hungry so we ate it anyway and it turned out to be really good. We saved a couple of buns for later and headed off into the green. The path was quite busy as it changed from bike lane, to farm lane, to dirt path and back to farm lane. We finally got to our turnoff and missed it. We ended up riding the path a couple of extra kilometers, but realized our mistake and had a nice tour through a little town to get back on track. When we joined back up to where we were supposed to be we saw that there was another path leading to the border of Italy and Switzerland. The path was a great dirt double-track that paralleled a river as it climbed towards the Swiss border. We had a couple of tough hills, a couple of tough cows and some really nice border guards. We got our passports stamped and rolled on the road on into town to our campground. We got situated right away and luckily the campground took Euro since the currency here is the Swiss Franc. We have now been fed and are about to dive into a bag of Toblerone chocolates. That is one nice thing about crossing borders is the duty free shopping.
Fat, full and happy
CK
Distance: 75.9 km
Avg Speed: 12.6 kph
Terrain: uphill slightly
Location: N 46˚ 37’ 44.2”, E 10˚ 27’ 14.2”
We got up with the rest of the early birds this morning. Our campsite in Merano was filled mostly with German pensioners. We were on the same schedule as them for the past couple of days: get up early, eat dinner early, go to bed early. It was nice not to feel left out. The only drawback was the battle for the bathroom in the morning. We rolled out of town around 9:00 am and enjoyed more of that lovely bike path for the next 72 km. The bike path actually came and went today, but the powers that be always routed it on little paved, seldom used farm roads. The only traffic we really saw were farmers taking bins of apples to the packing shed. I am sure they could have done without the cyclists clogging up their operation. We stopped for lunch at a little parking lot area outside of a town for some peanut butter and kiwi sandwiches. I had bought some bread last night that I thought would travel well since it was short, dense and wrapped tight. When I opened it I realized that I had bought a pretty strong rye bread. We were hungry so we ate it anyway and it turned out to be really good. We saved a couple of buns for later and headed off into the green. The path was quite busy as it changed from bike lane, to farm lane, to dirt path and back to farm lane. We finally got to our turnoff and missed it. We ended up riding the path a couple of extra kilometers, but realized our mistake and had a nice tour through a little town to get back on track. When we joined back up to where we were supposed to be we saw that there was another path leading to the border of Italy and Switzerland. The path was a great dirt double-track that paralleled a river as it climbed towards the Swiss border. We had a couple of tough hills, a couple of tough cows and some really nice border guards. We got our passports stamped and rolled on the road on into town to our campground. We got situated right away and luckily the campground took Euro since the currency here is the Swiss Franc. We have now been fed and are about to dive into a bag of Toblerone chocolates. That is one nice thing about crossing borders is the duty free shopping.
Fat, full and happy
CK
1 comment:
How do you liked merano? Isn't it a wonderful place? There are many green areas and it was so great to ride the bike for kilometers. I started at the hotel st. leonhard. There i also relaxed in the Spa-area.
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