Day 32: Glurns to Merano (Meran), Italy

August 22, 2015

In the common room, people left these costly devices. It's nice to see that they feel they can do this. However we also read today of the Hillis' getting a light taken from their bike almost under their noses, further north.

As often happens, the Grampies have cycled in to something with only a vague understanding of where their slow pedal strokes have taken them. So here we were, just following a cycle path (the Via Claudia Augusta) from Germany through a bit of Austria and into Italy - land of pizza and spaghetti - simple! When we crossed the Italian border we noticed the persistence of the German language. Hmm. Must be a near the border phenomenon. But as we continued deeper into "Italy", German was clearly the main language. Say what?

Only now, after talking to some locals in nearby Glurns, do we understand that this region, the SudTirol, is analogous to Quebec - a language enclave in a larger country, with a history behind the situation.

The history (as we now quickly read in Wikipedia) is that at the turn of the 19th century the area was German speaking and part of the Austrian/Hapsburg sphere of influence. The British, however, promised it to Italy in exchange for their support in WWI. Even though Italy took over, the region remained German speaking. That is until the fascist Mussolini government took over Italy. Then the plan was to Italianize the place, banning German and importing people from Italy at large. This fell through when Italy quit WWII in 1943, signing an armistice. That was Hitler's cue to take over, so German administration returned. Then when Germany lost the war, the sudTirol was handed back to Italy.

Through all this, the population has remained mostly German speaking. Though my informant in Glurns said it was 99 percent German, Wikipedia says 75 percent.

So what? So that's why when we went into Glurns for a second look this morning, the bakery was signed in two languages. But the lady behind the counter spoke only German. OK fine. But how confusing to find the products she was selling to be rather French, or Italian I suppose. What that means to us is much lighter weight stuff, which does not support as many km of cycling per piece as with true German baking.

The style in this church at least seems different from further north. This is in the Church of St Pankritus in Glurns

The Madonna seems more worried than serene

Outside the church in Glurns, Dodie fields UQ's - as usual, it's about the Da Brim

There are many towers here - most with plain pyramidal roofs, unlike this one

In another nearby church in Glurns, graves feature photos of the deceased.

We learned from Crazyguy bloggers Tricia Graham and David Alston that the ride down this valley of the Etsch river (also known as Venosta Valley, Vinschgau, and Alto Adige!) is fabulous. "Fabulous" is the type of word they use, and it's a good one, But I have been wondering how to convey just how fabulous it is. Well, here are the main things about it: You can usually see the broad valley, with its steep mountain walls studded with little hamlets and backed by steeper mountains, going down, down in front of you. In terms of larger villages, you can sometimes see two at a time, each with its church steeple. The high mountains on both sides produce a protective environment on the flat valley bottom, and because of this apples (mainly) are grown everywhere. By grown everywhere, I mean their culture is carried on with the same fiendish intensity that you usually see in grape regions. Every spare piece of ground is covered with espaliered apples, and right now the trees are dripping with large, beautiful fruit. As you cycle, in places you are on a "royal" avenue, lined with luscious fruit. The path itself is usually paved and perfectly smooth, and if you started from up the pass, the thing is 99 percent down.

So think of distant views to mountains and villages, nearer views of acres of apples, and smooth downward path beneath your wheels. Yes, it's fabulous. In fact, it makes the Mosel look weak, and the Mosel is great!

The churchyard with its photo graves, and the Venosta Valley in the background

This is the tallest mountain in the region - the Ortler, at 3905 meters

At the festival they were giving out free local apples. I was very happy to get the sticker, for my Ortlieb bag!

A panarama of the area near Schluderns. It's hard to see, but two more villages can be spotted down the valley

If there is a drawback here (other than Italian baking) it is the bike traffic on the paths. Lots of people have discovered this place, and the vast majority are out for a joy ride on unloaded mountain bikes. Whether up or down hill, they are zooming at high speed, often two (or more) abreast. A large number are lycra clad males out to prove something. This makes a dangerous environment for families and walkers, and the trail is much more like an auto road than a bike path.

Dodie and I tried some techniques on the approaching riders encroaching on our side of the path. In one, I would refuse to cringe over on the right side white line, but rather pull out and cycle straight for them. In almost no case did any of them budge an inch. So I could stay on track and pass within inches. They didn't care. The thing that did get their attention, was for Dodie and I to both begin gesticulating a pull over signal - get out of our road! This however just garnered funny stares. Finally, we would fold our arms out sideways, so it was the hand that missed them by an inch. This resulted in some shouts and swearing. But we think some did give an inch, or maybe a half inch!

None of these techniques, of course, would remedy those who would swoop out of nowhere from behind, and pass too close. Many times, I would just check my mirror and wow! somebody was right there, on my tail. Once I thought I saw a wobble in Dodie's rear wheel and pulled left two inches to get a better look. Woosh! Two lycra warriors missed me from behind by an inch! By the end of the day, despite the easy riding, this had me exhausted and crabby.

I took this to show the constant stream of cyclists, but it does rather belie my claim that there are so many lycra speeders

One thing that happened could not be pinned on lycra warriors, and to be sure it was the only actual injury we encountered. We came upon a scene of a rather distraught Italian speaking lady, and a very shook up Dutch girl, her parents, and brother, by the side of the trail. The girl, Laura, had bad scrapes on knee, hand, and side. She had touched/tangled handlebars with the now distraught Italian woman and gone flying.

Laura's father had only a small bandaid to put on the wounds, but Dodie had antiseptic, plasters, artificial skin appliques, and even if needed, steri-strips. She applied a lot of this to Laura, adding a Canada sticker, chocolate cookie, and grandmotherly hug. Laura was extremely brave, and we were impressed that she was willing in time, and able to remount her bike. Her Dad had the car stashed not too far away, and we understood that he would ride and retrieve it, to complete the rescue.

This evening we received this touching message from Laura:

Dear grannies, thanks for fixing my knee, hands, back, and all other spots where my MTB crash lead me today! I feel better already, hope I get a good night's sleep so I can annoy my brother again tomorrow ߘLooking forward to your blog and my (bloody) pictures! Dad fixed my rental bike, he is great mending technical stuff ߚGood luck on your trip, Laura. Pedala, pedala!

Here are some pictures, Laura:

Laura took a tumble on a gravel section of the trail. Dodie had a lot of first aid stuff, plus a chocolate cookie for her. Here are four photos to help her remember the experience (if she wants to!).

The apple orchards are one of the major features of this region. The trees are all trained much like grapes, and cover every inch of available land.

The Stelvio National Park is accessible from the cycle way. There is Stelvio Pass, accessible from this switchback road, that is part of the Giro d'Italia. There are 48 hairpins in the thing. Not Dodie territory!

Here is a lovely scene of a church among the apples

By the trailside, one enterprising farmer had set up a self serv stall with apple juice, apples, and preserves. see how popular it was!

There were several processing plants along the way. Even in the apple area of our own British Columbia/Washington State area we have not seen this many bins. They are high quality too - often at home the bins are rickety wood.

Rheinhold Messner is the legendary Himalayan mountain climber. This is his summer home, Juval Castle. He has a museum there. all you have to do is climb up to it!

The path followed directly beside the Etsch for a long time. The river is greenish and beautiful

Here is the profile of the ride down. Notice the big drop just before Meran!

See that big drop just before Merano? Yes, it really was steep - basically 14 percent. The path at this point goes through seven switchbacks, and you can see the city lying in the valley below. You can also see that that whole extravaganza is not over, and the valley continues, at least until Bolzano - but that is for tomorrow.

Merano is a real city, rather than a village, and we read that it has been reknowned as a spa town. The buildings look kind of spa-ish to us. Clearly unrepentant about guest houses, we stopped in at the youth hostel on the way to the camping, to see if we could evade the camping. No, no vacancy. We have so far not found a single vacant tourist room in Italy!

The camping is in the centre of Merano, and is just fine. Actually it became more than fine, as someone called put "Hey Dodie" as Dodie walked the grounds. It was Fredy and Barbara, the Southern Tier cyclists from Switzerland, who had found us yesterday. They happened to be in this camping, with their camper van.

We had talked during the day about finding our first authentic Italian wood oven pizza around lunch time. This did not happen, mainly because we are unwilling to stop long enough to sit down at a cafe, and somehow the pizzas were not being delivered along the trail. If truth be told, we also were more interested in drying our tent by a sunny bench than in waiting for a meal order at a table.

So when we arrived at the camping we were keen to go find a pizza restaurant. Fredy and Barbara knew of one, so off we all went. This one, and the next one, turned out to be closed. They were either closed on Saturdays, on vacation, or both. No matter, Fredy and Barbara easily found a third. It was great to have them, since naturally they speak German, the de facto language here.

We spent a super enjoyable 3 hours talking with Fredy and Barbara, with much about the days on the Southern Tier. Predictably, they, particularly Fredy, loved it - and notably West Texas, that Dodie hated. Fredy said he shed a tear when he actually made it there - so long had he dreamed and read about going, and he could not believe he was really there when it finally happened. Yes, just as we feel about Italy!

Back to looking at the menu, we found we could much more easily understand the German as opposed to the Italian, in the bilingual presentation.

The restaurant had many other dishes, but pizza was the object of this expedition. Naturally, it was from a wood oven, or forno (holzofen) and used buffalo mozzarella. I got one with three types of exotic mushrooms.

The wood oven flavour is always great, and the crust was the thin variety - same as we had gotten earlier in Austria. This appears to be the Italian standard. That would make it much different from the American type, developed (as far as quality pizza goes) in New York. The telling difference is whether you can pick up a wedge and bite the end, or if you really need a knife and fork to manage the pizza.

I think the American (quality American - not Pizza Hut) and European pizzas are quite different products. I like both. But I still have a soft spot for the wood oven thick crust stringy cheese variety sometimes findable in the New World. However, there may not be enough data yet. Tomorrow is another day!

There were seven switchbacks to take us to Meran. Watch out for crazies on unloaded bikes!

First pizza in Italy. Thanks, Fredy and Barbara!

See, you can not just lift a wedge - too thin and flexible.

Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 1,612 km (1,001 miles)

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