Farewelling the Apple Orchards and Vineyards of the Adige River Valley

 Morter to Resia

    

Hello from the apple orchards of the upper Adige Valley!

As usual Dianne and I were wide awake and twiddling our thumbs by 5:00 a.m. Breakfast wasn’t officially scheduled to start until 7:30 a.m. but we thought we might as well bring our bikepacking bags across early from the satellite building where we slept to the main hotel building so we could get set up to depart as soon as we’d eaten. To our surprise and pleasure there were already others in the breakfast room at about ten past seven so we were able to hit the road by the time breakfast was scheduled to start. Bonus! 

Here’s a photo of Di only a hundred metres or so after we left the hotel …

For the first time since we could remember there were clouds in the sky and the air was a bit cooler. Despite not being able to check into our accommodation in Resia until 3:00 p.m. we were keen to make a quick getaway because there was some rain forecast for between 6 a.m. and noon.

We were caught totally by surprise as we left the town and resumed riding through the apple orchards. Whoever the farmer was that owned the orchards closest to town had his sprinklers turned on and we were dodging as best we could the water coming out of the sky, and the puddles and rivulets running down the road. I’ve put some footage of that together with a bit of fun gravel we had just a little bit after which gave us a nice wake up for the day’s endeavours …

. We thought it would be a good idea to minimise the chance of getting rained on and to avoid heat as much as possible because of the amount of climbing we had ahead of us. For a change, I’m putting the elevation profile before the map because the dominant factor today was going from 670 metres above sea level (after a slight descent from Morter) up to 1525 metres above sea level at our accommodation here in Resia. Here’s what the profile looks like …

As you can see there was one climb early which, according to RWGPS would be about 7 kilometres long with an elevation gain of 200+ metres. The second climb was the business: 14.8 kilometres with an elevation gain of 677 metres. That only suggests an average of 3.9% over that distance, but for reason they’d taken the climb right out to the little pimple to the right of where the obvious slope finishes. Ridiculous! In any case the real climb turned out to be ten kilometres at just over 6 percent. With some short horizontal sections and other bits with very gradual rises it meant that there were some quite steep sections. I saw 18% showing at one point when I was dragging myself over the last steep part up to a castle sitting right beside the veloroute. More about that later; back to the start of our journey.

Shortly after that gravel section finished we came across a man riding through the forest with his quite young son, a very nice sight to see but so much more prevalent here than back home it Tasmania …

And something else: I don’t know if they were touring together or not, but I suspect they might have been, because Dad’s got panniers front and back so I think they probably were. Just brilliant I reckon.

Soon we were once again riding though apple orchards and looking up at hillsides dotted with small fields scattered apparently randomly amongst forest …

In some orchards, the trees were laden with fruit …

… and people were busy thinning those apples …

Someone operating a more high-tech machine to do something similar I’m guessing …

The thing that I like especially about this video is how it shows the variety of what’s going on in the landscape: apple growing, pastures for stock on the slopes of the mountains, logs awaiting processing and the river running through it all …

Here’s today’s map showing the route tracing the river towards the west initially and then curving around to almost directly north. Almost three-quarters of the elevation gain was made in the last 21 kilometres after we left the town of Glorenza also known as Glurns.

When we were still across the river from Gorenza and approaching from the south we spotted a tower that really stood out and was a bit different - of a certain age I’m guessing …

I confess to getting a bit excited and thinking, “Oh! That looks nice.”

Glurns/Gorenza is a charming medieval town and we wanted to at least to stop for coffee and have a look inside the walls. There is a covered bridge that crosses the river just opposite the entrance to Glorenza …

To my amazement, just after I took this photo a full-sized bus came across the bridge and into the town. I didn’t think that the bridge would be strong enough but clearly it was!

Here’s a photo of Di stopped at the entrance to the town so I could get a picture of her and the old four-square solid tower that would have provided a formidable defense against would-be invaders …

… and a bunch of photos taken in the town square as we had coffee and a rest before started up the big test piece for the day …

Both Di and I had a double shot cappachino and a quite large piece of apple strudel to fortify ourselves from the challenge ahead …

I loved the immaculate cobbles in the square …

… which was a pretty nice place to hang our for a half hour or so …

This photo is included to show what is a pretty standard setup for many of the people riding the Veloroute 7 for a few days or perhaps a week: a generic electric bike and a couple of big panniers. No lie: we saw literally hundreds of people travelling this way along the Adige since we started up it at Peschiera Del Garda four days ago. Young and old, some  of them were clearly not very experienced cyclists either, but riding on the bike paths seemed to make them feel perfectly safe.

There were lots of young people travelling the way we were on non-electrified bikes and a few older people too. It looked like most of them were riding gravel-style bikes but some were on traditional touring bikes. Quite a few of the young people we say over the past two days - especially yesterday - were travelling very light and it looked like they were doing a weekend return trip, or perhaps a three-dayer, often in groups of five to ten. They pretty much all looked like they were having a brilliant time moving quickly through the landscape. Basically, there were just so many people  of all walks of life and widely varying fitness, many of them decades into adulthood just having fun on bikes. Something that is a marginal activity at best in Australia and I dare say in most of North America too.

Somehow, even after studiously study the map and elevation profile for today’s ride, I’d gotten the idea we’d have a couple of kilometres to warm up when getting back on track after our break in Gorenza. It turned out that we were straight onto the climb and pedaling uphill with no real breaks. The hardest part of the climb was definitely the first half. 

I don’t know about Di, but I was constantly looking for things to distract me from this uncompromising hill. Here are some examples of things I either snapped while riding or occasionally stopped to frame something more carefully …

A very ruined castle …

A barn completely covered in solar panels …

A magnificent harvest of logs (with no sign of clear felling anywhere!) …

A few beehives …

A place where the river ran through an enclosed channel …

A nice little pile of firewood lengths waiting to be split …

A very *aromatic* pile of manure that’s been spread to decompose and add life to the pasture quicker …

I had a feeling that the hardest bit was coming to an end when this intact and imposing castle loomed into view …

“It’s just around the corner,” I thought, and pushed harder on the pedals as it was already pretty steep and getting steeper. Sure enough, when I glanced down at my Garmin just as I was pushing over the final crest it told me the gradient was 18%. It was probably the steepest I’ve ridden up with a load on and I was pretty darn happy when it leveled off and I found myself in a car park at the top of a road leading up to the castle from the other side. Here’s my bike parked while I wait for Di to arrive …

.. and a photo from another angle. If you look closely, you can see a couple of guys sitting on a bench after riding their bikes up the cobbled path …

They arrived just after I did and were travelling a lot lighter than what Dianne and I were and were moving a lot faster too. While they were up there admiring the view, Di arrived.

The two of them rode back down and stopped for a chat, maybe because I’d asked if they’d seen a lady with the same pack on her bike as me, and the elder of the two, who spoke quite good English, said yes, she wasn’t that far behind.  He was as thin as a rake and clearly looked after himself and was a very accomplished cyclist. He was wearing an Eroica jersey, and told me he had ridden the storied event and was “a member”, whatever that means. I asked him how old he was, and he proudly told me that he’d be 67 in a couple of months. When I told him Di was 76 he was gobsmacked and congratulated her profusely for riding up that hill and especially carrying such a heavy load!

Needless to say, Di was happy to park her bike for a while and take  rest and let the bike do likewise …

There was a lot of nice scenery the rest of the way into Resia and it was easier to take time to appreciate it. I’ll allow the pictures speak for themselves …

And finally we got our first view of the centre of the town of Resia …

We were way too early to check into our accommodation and, in any case, first priority for both of us was to get some lunch. Di had been informed of a gasthaus close by which we found quite easily, and we happily whiled away the time having a good feed and drinking in (along with the beer) this view from the balcony …

I’m just
so proud of Di getting up this rather daunting climb today. She really wanted to ride all the way up the Adige River but had been really nervous about this day since back in October when we settled on our itinerary. Pretty much every day of this trip the final climb up to Resia has had its entrails examined, and Di said many times that she could always catch a train around the other way from Bolzano. But she’s no piker and knew she could always push her bike up the steeper bits - which shed did a couple of times but hardly at all in the greater scheme of things.

This post is dedicated to you My Dear. Thanks for being with me on this journey.