September 8, 2022
Day 6 - Nauders to Glurns
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Rich had planned a short day today. After 6 straight days of riding, and with the walled medieval town of Glurns to explore, less mileage seemed like a good idea.
It turned out to be a great idea, mostly because of the weather. Raindrops started hitting the roof at about 0300 and the rain continued all night long. At 0730 when we got up, we consulted our 3 weather oracles. It looked like the best plan was to leave Nauders around 1200.
Checkout time was 1100. It was hard not to get going, but the cold rain outside reminded us of the wisdom of our plan. We wasted time until checkout, and then the lovely manager of the Berghof let us hang out in their well-appointed basement until the rain stopped.
Finally the rain eased up. We rolled off right at noon, into a wet and chilly mountain world. Despite yesterdays heroics, there were still some climbs to warm us up as we approached the Reschenpass. We distracted ourselves with the scenery.
After passing through a few ski areas, we got to the official top of the pass. A commemorative photo was required.
Shortly afterwards, we got confirmation that we’d entered our fourth country.
Despite the sign at the “top” of the pass, the bike path continued to climb. We eventually topped out at 1517 meters on the Wahoo before dropping down to the Reschensee.
The ride around the lake was nice and flat. We stopped for the required picture of the sunken church tower. The water level in the lake was lower than I’ve seen in any other pictures.
- We could see some serious-looking rain falling down to the south, but kept moving along because it seemed to be moving away from us. As we dropped down to circle the Haidersee, it looked like we had made the right decision. There was snow on the peaks in that direction but we were under blue sky. We tobogganed around the Haidersee on beautifully surfaced paths.
After the Haidersee, the path drops down steeply, with radar-controlled signs warning you of your speed and dire warnings of 20% grades. We took it easy through this section, alternating our two rim brakes with our disk drag brake.
Somewhere along the way, we hit a detour that took us off our planned route. Between controlling our speed and following the little yellow detour signs, we really weren’t sure where we were going. We wound up in Mals, where we got a glimpse of a couple beautiful castles.
After some tricky maneuvers and a glorious downhill run on a two-lane road, we met back up with the bike path. The final kilometers into Glurns were beautiful.
We were too early to check into our hotel, the Flurin Suites, so we killed some time with drinks on the busy town square. Unlike a lot of well-preserved towns, Glurns doesn’t seem to have a problem with vehicles passing through. It felt like we were drinking in the middle of a busy street!
We checked in, changed clothes, and headed out to explore. The town is pretty small and easy to navigate through. We had a good time communing with the old stones. Amazingly, the town wall is intact. We don’t think we’ve ever seen that before.
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We played it safe with dinner downstairs from our room. The food was excellent but pricy. We think we do just as well with pizza and salad.
It was a great day!
Today's ride: 29 km (18 miles)
Total: 305 km (189 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 8 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 1 |