Several years ago a friend of mine, and fellow German 3 translator of such classics as Asterix and Obelix and the famous Tankwart story, suggested I cycle in the Dolomites.  A cursory Google search gave me the impression that it was not a cycle friendly area for a recumbent bicycle so I put it largely out of my mind until, one day, I ran across a Bikeline guide to Suedtirol.  In flipping through the guidebook I discovered that my Google search had been completely wrong about the Dolomites and cycling.  Suedtirol actually has quite extensive cycling infrastructure, in part because two major long-distance routes starting in Bayern run right through there, the Via Claudia Augusta, and the Muenchen-Venezia Radfernweg.  The Via Claudia runs past the Reschensee through Meran down to Bozen and then on to Trient and eventually to Venice.  The Muenchen-Venezia runs over the Brenner Pass to Brixen, through Bruneck, to Toblach, and then down through Cortina d'Ampezzo along the Langen Weg der Dolomiten to Venice.  Whether Suedtirol has such fine Radwegs because of those routes, or just wanted good paths to appeal to summer cycling tourists, I'm not sure, but it makes for a really great place to cycle.  The vast majority of the Radwegs are well-paved, appear to be very well-signed, and use very minimal on-road riding.  Basically my ideal place to cycle.  In addition, there is excellent train service throughout the area and, if you plan it right, you can end up mainly cycling downhill.

My plan back in 2018 was to cycle in Suedtirol in the summer of 2019.  Due to business-related matters and a lot of home improvement projects I opted to only do a one-week trip in 2019 and ended up cycling the Liebliches Tabertal and Altmuehl Radwegs.  That trip ended up involving some very unnecessary drama which you can read about here: Altmühl and Taubertal Radwegs - CycleBlaze  Despite, or perhaps because of, that drama I was eager to come back summer of 2020 and spend a couple weeks in Suedtirol.  Unless you've been living on a remote island with no news access, you'll know that plan totally did not work out.  

For the past year and a half I've been monitoring the news to see if the EU would let US tourists in.  Since I had a voucher for the price of the plane ticket I had booked in January 2020, I went ahead and booked a flight early this year.  Originally I was booked to fly into Zurich Switzerland, but about a week after booking that ticket Iceland Air reduced their ticket prices even further.  Given that they were offering free cancellation of tickets, I decided to cancel my ticket and instead book a flight to Muenchen figuring that since I know that area well it would be easier to navigate Covid restrictions there instead of in Switzerland.  The train ride from Muenchen to the Brenner Pass is also a direct run from the Hauptbahnhof in Muenchen which will simplify things.  Also, it would not involve riding up a steep pass or transferring to a bus to get to the Reschensee.  

In late May I opted to take a chance and went ahead and booked accommodations for nearly every night of the trip.  Partly I was concerned people would be eager to travel and snap everything up, and also I try not to pay a fortune for rooms and the earlier you book, the more affordable options you have.  About a month later Germany, Austria, and Italy all finally announced they would let US tourists in.  At least for now.  All the rooms I've booked are refundable should the EU change its mind so it seemed like a sensible risk to take.

In planning the trip I went through several possible scenarios contemplating which would make the most sense as far as limiting risk of Covid exposure.  Naturally I'm vaccinated so that alone reduces risk considerably.  I also was able to acquire a stash of N95 masks which are required in Germany for pretty much everything.  I also considered cycling from Muenchen to the Brenner Pass and on to Sterzing and down into Suedtirol.  However, the Brenner does not have a separate cycle path and, despite the Autobahn, still has too much fast-moving traffic for me.  If I'm going to have to hop a train I might as well take the train all the way.  

What I ended up settling on was to ride from the airport to Muenchen to avoid the S-Bahn and whatever crowds might be on it and then take the train from there to the Brenner Pass.  From there I'll coast downhill to Sterzing for the night.  Then from there I'll head to Bozen where I'll stay for a few days and do day trips.  Then on to Meran for a day, further on to Mals where I'll stay two nights so I can do a ride around the Reschensee, back to Meran, then on to Brixen, further to Bruneck for 2 nights with a day trip there, and then finally on to Toblach where I'll stay 5 nights and do several day trips.  I put Toblach at the end of the trip since that area gets some heavy tourist traffic.  I'm hoping that there will be less people around the first week of September.  All told I'll be there 3 weeks, a week longer than previous trips.  The main bike routes will end up getting ridden both out and back, one, because the scenery is worth it, and two, so I can avoid public transit.  The only spot that will absolutely require public transit is the bus ride to the Drei Zinnen.  The road up to that area is too steep and busy for me.  The other place I may bail to the bus is the road to the Pragsser Wildsee.  Both spots are presently requiring drivers to register for a time to drive up there to reduce the number of tourists at those locations and that may be a sufficient reduction in traffic to feel comfortable at least doing the ride to the Pragsser Wildsee.  Even the bus must be reserved in advance.

The main risk is that the borders could obviously close at any point along with US tourists suddenly getting the boot.  I did look into moving up the date of departure, but ticket prices took a big spike in June and I'm too cheap to pay twice as much for a ticket as my original ticket.  The middle of the summer is also not a good time for me to leave my business.  Every day I check the news to see if there are any rumors of the borders shutting down.  So far I've not seen anything hinting that way, though I know the EU is getting frustrated that the US has not reciprocated on letting EU tourists in.  With the Delta variant of Covid eagerly making the rounds through the distressingly large number of yet unvaccinated people, anything could happen in the next three weeks.  I've been hesitant to test fate by starting this journal.  Fingers crossed this doesn't turn into an In Memoriam to a trip that had to get cancelled again.  My backup plan is Iceland and honestly, it's not an appealing backup.  It's cold and windy there and some stretches of the main route around the island can be pretty busy and hilly.  I have a limit to how hard I want to work to see good scenery.  It also appears that they do not have a strong pastry culture there.  Oh, and I don't eat fish so....

In conclusion, if you are not yet vaccinated, please please please talk with you doctor about the vaccine.  The sooner nearly everyone is vaccinated, the sooner we can have nice things like European cycling adventures!