Day 20 - Prato to Bolzano

Gee another early morning for us again with us awake at 5.30 am!

My wife, Robyn sent through a text which I responded to shortly after awakening and she was flabbergasted that I was awake so early! Gee what a change you make to your normal daily routine when you’re away on these trips!

We had breakfast again in the room and as the bike storage room was not open it gave time for me and Steve to have coffee and a croissant…

As we returned to our hotel, we saw a big pelaton of bikes in some sort of event. The roads were closed for the bikes to travel and there must of been hundreds of riders in the race. I was not sure where they were going but they were heading in the direction of Stelvio.

The weather was cool today with the temperature around 16 degrees to start then it warmed up as the day went on. By the end of the ride it was quite hot and sunny.

We started out on the ride today at about 7.45 am and the destination was Bolzano which the cycle.travel navigating map said was a big downhill for the whole day. We descended about 730 metres today along the valley of the Adige River which was in full flow with water from snow melt. Quite spectacular…

Our first stop was at the 50 km mark where Steve and I had a cappuccino and a stale croissant…. Yuck!

As we were making good time on the downhill which was on excellent cycling paths, we agreed to push on to our destination and we were there by about 1.00 pm. Not bad in doing 80 kms in a little over 4 hours excluding stop times for drinks and coffee.

Arriving at Bolzano we were too early for the check in to our accommodation so we had lunch which seemed to be in a restaurant which was owned by the same people as our accommodation. Lunch for me was spaghetti carbonara which was great after the ride… I am finding that the pasta is great to fuel me for riding!

After lunch we went to the railway station where we booked tickets for Lintz and beyond for the next stage of the ride.our next stage involves locating into Austria where we pick up a route which follows a march that was undertaken by a New Zealand prisoner of war in the Second World War until he was released when the war ended near Munich. Rather than ride to the start we believe it is best to take a day to travel by train to the location.

After buying the tickets it was off to our accommodation for the night which is INTERESTING to say the least. It is located above an apparel shop which I think specialises in ladies underwear. For those of you who think it seems dodgy you could be right. We have two rooms with double beds for 3 of us so Steve has volunteered to use the blow up bed for the night sharing with me.

The accommodation is ok for the night as we are leaving early tomorrow for a 7.00 am train.

The day of riding was a real change from the mental slog of the ride up Stelvio and was exhilarating at times on the steeper downhills. The country we travelled through was rich with orchards of apples, pears and many other fruits. On the sides of the hills were perched vines… amazing to see this.

As I finish the day I am at the laundromat doing the group washing…. This is my allocated task when we can. Steve does the buying of tickets on trains and ferries and Chris is in charge of navigating on cycle.travel and the supermarket shopping when needed. This all seems to work well. Each of us gets turns to book accommodation as we go either through booking.com or in a hostel. Each day we take turns at navigating the ride for the day…. Today was my turn and I only made 3 wrong turns! Not bad for me.

I am very pleased at the comments that are coming in on the blog and it seems you are enjoying the story of the trip. Don’t forget that this is in part a fund raising trip for the Alkira cafe and any donation is welcome. It is tax deductible as well.

Today’s photos are:

The route

The bike riders on the race this morning

A view of the valley of the river And a photo of the river beside the bike path

An interesting bridge over the river

Morning coffee… the croissants were stale!

Lunch at Bolzano

Our accommodation for the night… we are on the second floor