Lasa - Laas to Bolzano - Bozen - Fibonacci Scribble

June 7, 2022

Lasa - Laas to Bolzano - Bozen

Before I describe today, let’s return to yesterday and Lasa.

When we went in search of groceries, we noticed that this is quite a nice little village. It looks prosperous; the buildings in the town centre are all in very good condition, even though some have dates from the 1600s above the door. But that’s the only way to tell as they have been updated as needed.

The church in Lasa has clearly been added to.

Some are, I think, actually quite new, like the house we are staying in. It’s a private house with a couple of tourist apartments on the top (euro second) floor and what looks to be a bigger one on the first floor. Steps leading down from the street entrance are marked private and presumably lead to the owners’ suite on the garden level.

The garden at our accommodation, which guests may use.

We couldn’t buy groceries yesterday so, poor us, we had to eat out again. The offerings are a bit different here in the Alto Adige…

I have no idea what my meal was but I ordered it off the “spargel season” menu. Little dumplings, not really gnocchi, in a sauce with white and green asparagus. (We haven’t seen a lot of asparagus in Italian restaurants, but we aren’t really in Italy anymore.). Al had a schnitzel which turned out to be very large.

This morning we bought a few things at the now open grocery store and had breakfast in our apartment. It was raining lightly but had stopped by the time we were ready to leave.

We backtracked to the radweg and then it was mostly a gentle descent. It sure didn’t feel like 77 km!

These bird stencils are on all the tornante signs on the climb from Bormio and occasionally on the road too. I thought there was some significance but I didn’t know what until now. It seems this part of the radweg passes through the national park as well.

We had been congratulating ourselves that the rain stopped before we started riding but we hadn’t counted on orchard sprinklers.

This area is famous for apples and the radweg passes through orchards for kilometres. These orchards don’t look at all like the ones that used to dominate the Okanagan when we were young, though. They look more like vineyards, with closely-spaced trees in rows and trained on wires. Only a few had netting above like this one.

Why would you ride on a road when you have this? And why can’t we have cycling infrastructure like this in BC?

Part of an info board on the side of the radweg. Too bad we have the wrong bikes for this.

The radweg, which seems to be part of the Via Claudia Augusta, follows the Adige/Etsch River. The river was very high and brown with silt today. The path did not cross the river on this old rail bridge; I just liked it.

All the signs said was “Route 2”. The milestone on the other side probably has something to do with river surveys. The river is just on the other side of the trees on the right while there’s an active rail line to the left.

We stopped for lunch in Vilpiano. We had planned to go to the grocery store and get a picnic (there are frequent rest areas with picnic tables along the radweg) but arrived at the grocery store 5 minutes after it closed for the midday break. So we went to a restaurant and each of us ordered a “roast beef salad.” This is what came. It was very tasty, plus the skies opened while we were eating so a picnic wouldn’t have been so great after all.

We stayed at the restaurant until the rain slowed and then put on our rain jackets for the last bit of the ride. Considering the weather, there were an amazing number of people riding on the radweg.

Our apartment here in Bolzano is conveniently close to an open grocery store so we’ve stocked up and will explore the town tomorrow. We have 3 nights here and only one firm plan, besides rest up for what could be the toughest day of riding yet.

Heart

Comment

Link

Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 1,757 km (1,091 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	10
Comment on this entry	Comment	0