I took a five day bike trip through the Dolomite Mountain Region in May of 2007. Unlike France in 2003, this time I had company; my wife, Janet came with me. I had a hard time keeping up with her most of the way.
It was the same long trip to Europe. Having to go through Chicago from Syracuse only added a few hours to the already long trip. We arrived in Frankfurt at 6:20am, to catch a flight to Innsbruck, then a train to Brixen. Of course, there was a four hour wait for that train. Flying from Frankfurt to Innsbruck we were in a prop plane with mostly locals flying on business. Flying from a flat terrain into the Dolomite mountain range was spectacular. Our altitude went from 10,000 feet to about 900 feet flying through the mountain gulches.
After arriving at the hotel and checking in, we began to explore the city. We walked across a footbridge into the City Center. The streets were lined with lots of little shops, restaurants and wine stores. We were right in the middle of the wine region in Italy.
The first day we met with the tour guides who gave us our bikes, maps, luggage transfers and hotel passes for the trip. We were given 20 minutes to get ready to take a train 70km (43.3 miles) to Toblach. We were to bike from there back to the hotel in Brixen the first day. The weather started out cloudy and turned into rain on the bike ride. We had our golf rain gear, so other than being a little cold, we were dry. I had purchased a GPS unit with Western Europe maps on it so I figured if we had the tour maps and the GPS we were golden. Wrong! We must have biked a hundred miles that day. After asking lots of directions, being on busy highways that bikes obviously should not be traveling on, we saw a sign that said Brixen 6km. Great, we biked another twenty minutes to find a sign that said Brixen 6.5km. At that point we just took the road into town and let the GPS find the hotel. During our travels that day we ran across Italian military carrying out maneuvers in the countryside. It was a little unnerving passing between a tank and riflemen in a country house, even though they were waving us through. We laughed and laughed that day and never got frustrated being lost most of the way. That set the tone for the rest of the trip.
The next four days we biked 40km to Bozen, 50km to Kaltern, 50km to Trento, and 45km to Lake Garda, our final destination. It usually took us an hour to find the way out of town. There were bike paths everywhere and very little street riding. After the first day, the weather could not have been better; clear, sunny skies with the temperatures in the 70’s and no humidity. Each day we passed through local vineyards and small towns arriving at our destination. On the way to the hotel in each town, we stopped and got a few bottles of the local wine to enjoy before dinner. Dinners consisted mostly of pizza and sandwiches from local eateries. We didn’t feel like going out for elaborate meals.
We arrived at our final destination; Lake Garda. Lake Garda is the largest and deepest lake in Italy, located halfway between Venice and Milan. A little saddle-sore from five straight days of riding, we were glad to turn the bikes in. We had biked 158 miles over the five days.
The best day of the trip was riding in the nice air-conditioned bus from Lake Garda to Verona, our departure city. The ride was the length of Lake Garda with lots of stops in small towns letting other tourists on and off. It was a great trip. We’re looking for another bike trip; maybe Portugal next time. Any ideas from visitors would be helpful. A bike trip of three days on, two days off, and another two or three on would be ideal.
Some pictures along the way follow.
| Lost as hell | Coming from Toblach to Brixen | Arriving at Lake Kaltern |
| That was a long ride up | Verona Square | Fort looking down river |
| On the way back to Brixen |