Rise Up and Show Your Power: Day 61 - Gremona del Fruili to Tarvisio
If anyone reading this is ever thinking about doing a cycle trip in Europe, this CAAR route has to be part of it.
Today was simply great. Perfect weather, amazing scenery, fantastic riding, great villages and cafe's, zero stress riding. I'll stop now because I've run out of adjectives.
Although we were basically going uphill all day, it was mostly on an old rail line with (mostly) perfect new pavement and a gradient of 1-3% (almost imperceptible).
We only rode 66 km, but we spent most of the day doing it. One reason was that we were continually stopping to take pictures and just enjoy the views. Another was because we were going through beautiful towns and villages that deserved our attention.
That attention started after only 6 km when we pulled into Venzone, a village that had been rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1976. It had a beautiful town square with a few cafe's that were full of lycra clad roadies having coffee and cakes. We had to join them!
We had a pretty cute / humorous experience while we were there too. As we were sipping our cappuccino's, a young guy (20 something) came up to a door in the building beside the café, rang the bell, and then turned and walked away into the square. He turned around and looked at the building and then pulled out his phone and started to type a text. Kirsten remarked that it looked like a modern day Romeo and Juliette scene, and low and behold, he yelled something out (in Italian ... imagine that!), and a girl popped her head out of the upper window and called back. A few seconds later she was out the door and they were off.
The rest of the day continued on like that. Hopefully we have a few more of these ahead of us. I think both K and I are mountain people. We like it here!
Tomorrow ... Austria part 2 ... the mountain chapter
A real throw back to 1984. As I was riding along still in wonder at how the Italian Alps just 'rise up' out of the flat plains a few km's from the ocean, this song came into my head and wouldn't leave.
It was the classic 'feel good' song of the summer of 1984, and it still worked on an amazing day like today
Another cycle tourer was staying at the same B&B last night ... Alexander from Salzburg ... he was on his way to Grado ... we might meet up with him in a few days in Salzburg for a beer
Shortly after leaving Gemona we were on beautiful paved bike path ..Most of today was along bike paths built on the old railroad than ran through to Villach. It was decommissioned in the mid '90's and turned into a bike route in the last decade. It is amazing!
After a strenuous 6 km on 1% grade rail tracks, we came to the town Venzone ... It had been destroyed in a major earthquake in 1976 but had been faithfully rebuilt
The route continued north from Venzone with routes on both sides of the river. We chose the east side and it was pretty rough for a few km's (very old road and rails that looked like it was still under reconstruction). We finally came to this barrier fence ... that we had to open to get out!
... all day like this ... looking back on our lunch spot ... a nice little restaurant in an old railway station ... totally catering to the bike traffic now =, and there is lots of it
The valley narrow quite a bit and through this space is a) our bike path (most important), b) a new double track railroad that is mostly in tunnels and crosses the river every few km's, c) an AutoRoute that like the train is mostly in tunnels or elevated bridges in the valley, d) a regional highway and e)several local roads. I spite of this, we hardly heard, or saw, any of the other traffic!
The valley really narrowed down at Pontebba. This was the old border between Austria and Italy until 1919. The little creek on the left side of the pic was the border. During WW1 there were Austrian and Italian troops facing off against each other here. I think the cemetery in the picture might be a result of that
Finally approaching Tarvisio at the summit of a three way pass. Border of Italy, Austria and Slovenia It's also a watershed between the Black Sea and the Adriatic. Very Alpine feel ... so you have to have cows with cow bells!
