Greetings from Merano

We spent the day in the Dolomites and no wonder this place has been designated a world heritage site. This mountain range must be one of the most beautiful landscapes anywhere in the world with vertical walls, sheer cliffs and deep, long valleys. There are apparently 18 peaks which rise to above 3,000 metres and our legs are testament to this.

Yes that's Harley...

We left the hotel in Cortina at 8 and headed straight into the first of our three climbs of the day, we were looking at doing about 11,000 ft. or 3350 meters of ‘up’ today. It was a beautiful morning, only spoiled by squadrons of leather clad Germans on huge motorcycles carving up the narrow roads and making it somewhat difficult to appreciate our surroundings.

Lunch was at a small bar the top of the Valparola pass, shortly after we arrived a group of rather green Dutch cyclists turned up and we thought it better to get off the mountain before they started to swarm down the mountain.

Green Dutch Cyclists

Bolted down some pasta and by the time we were ready to go the rain had arrived again. Thankfully only a light shower compared to yesterday, but enough to make you cautions on the steep descent.

By mid afternoon we got to our third and final peak of the day, the sun was out again as we headed down to Bolzano for the last stretch from there to Merano. It was getting late and Chris was determined to get to our destination before 7 O’clock, consequently we all chose to ignore Harley’s increasing desperate pleas for ice cream.

A plea for ice cream (unheard)

I remember from our last trip to this part of the world the fabulous cycle paths that run along the valleys connecting the towns. The only issue can be finding your way through this complex network of paths as they weave through the towns. Graham took us to several distinctly uninteresting industrial estates. “we’d be OK if there was someone to ask” he kept repeating, which would have been a worthy sentiment if his lack of proficiency at Italian and his British approach of ‘if they don’t understand shout louder’ had not already taken us off towards the Austrian border on two separate occasions earlier in the afternoon. Anyway, we eventually discovered the path we were supposed to be on and found ourselves following a very fit group of lycra clad women cyclists, flying towards Merano; we fell in behind them with Chris keen to take the lead and suddenly going rather faster than he’d managed at any point over the proceeding days.

We got to the City Hotel about 7, another excellent place. Good, large gin and tonics on arrival and after the usual kit washing ceremony, we headed out to a small Italian restaurant, frequented by locals which is always a good sign. The waitress fell in love with Graham, which was nice and which made him feel better after all the abuse he’d received about his navigation earlier in the day.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this..."

The mighty Stelvio tomorrow. Keep you posted.