September 20, 2015
Day 3 - Bolzano to Trento: Hooray! Finally, the proper cycling starts!!
Unfortunately, jet lag woke me at 4.30am after only about 6 hours sleep. So after reading for a few hours, an early phone call home, breakfast, and some basic bike TLC, I ended up leaving just before 9am. I blame jet lag again, but it took me nearly 5km of thinking "gosh it's strange that I am still riding into the sun considering I am supposed to be going south" and "the weather said a NE wind, but I seem to have a headwind" to realise I was following the river the wrong way. Fool!
Still, it ended up being a very nice ride, once I turned around. 90% on slightly elevated bike paths near the river, with a bit of a tail wind, plenty of sun, and lots of pretty flowers.
Occasionally, there were sections in the shade through avenues of trees and bits of wood. Otherwise it was apple orchards on one side, and slightly turquoise blue river on the other.
Trees, mountains, lots of electricity infrastructure, churches with small villages around them, the odd castle perched on the side of the hill, and terraced grape vines. And road bikes.
Sunday morning, so the roadies were out in force. Incredibly, some of them indulging in bunch rides on a 2.5m wide bike path. As oncoming traffic, they were a bit scary. My presence gave them a great opportunity to make the secret hand gestures and staccato shouts that I have often heard, but never managed to decipher. But which did work well enough that no-one ran into me. Otherwise there were lots of recreational cyclists. Particularly, a large number of elderly cyclists on electric bikes, dads out with their little daughters on little pink bikes with tassles (where were the mums and brothers?!?), and groups of boys on mountain bikes (29ers being all the rage with the young people). I also saw two sagged groups with matching bikes and panniers (two separate companies). There were a couple of people really struggling after 2km on what I assume was day 1. They really looked like they had never ridden a bike before. Luckly they were on an almost completely flat cycle path, with lots of artfully arranged seating and picnic tables, and a couple of German style pub/restaurants along the way! I really hope they did enjoy themselves as much as I did.
Is it a German thing? Or a pan-European thing? But, what is this fetish with routing bike paths past sewage treatment works?? I passed four today. Not a great smell...
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I arrived in Trento at about 1.30pm and headed straight for the cathedral square, assuming (correctly) that I would have no problem finding a sandwich and a drink.
Then I checked into an awesome B&B just around the corner, showered, and headed out for a wander.
Definately back to the Italian language today. German doesn't seem to stretch this far south, although the restaurants still have a lot of Austrian food on the menu. Hopefully, it will stop me getting so confused and ending a conversation in Italian with "danke".
The old part of town is great and car free. Lots of little streets and squares, very disorientating. I just walked randomly for a while, then headed to the Castello del Buonconsiglio.
It's essentially a castle from the 13th C. that had major additions over the centuries and ended up being restored in the 1920s. Inside are rooms of art works, castle history and artifacts, and most interestingly, a fantastic collection of local archeological finds from 5,000BC to the Middle Ages.
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Arranged chronologically, with informative interpretive signage, the displays gave a real sense of the key waves of techological advancement, migration and empire; and the subsequent impacts on religion, social structures and making things for useful and decorative purposes.
Following a beer and dinner in a pub recommended by the B&B owner, I wandered around some more and found an excellent licorice flavoured gelato. All quite fun really.
Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 79 km (49 miles)
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