Upwardly Mobile

 Bolzano to Morter

We rode past a couple of landmarks on our way out of town

Our accommodation in Bolzano had no breakfast facilities so after seeing what was available we settled on the Hotel Figl, which was opening at 7:30. They had a lovely garden patio and it was a gorgeous morning so we opted to eat outside …

… this hotel is right in the centre of the old part of the city and if we were ever to come back to Bolzano to spend a few nights it is definitely a place we’d have to consider.

We only had a light breakfast because we had a plan to have a stop at a cafe for a snack about 30 kilometres up the road not far before we tackled the first of two real climbs for the day.

Being early on a Sunday morning it was not all hectic leaving town, especially amongst the cobbled streets of the centre …

… but even on the wide open roads on the outskirts of town …

As we were exiting town this, the first castle of the day, presented itself …

Soon we were back on the EV (EuroVelo) 7 alongside the Adige River again …

After leaving Bolzano today’s route took us north-northwest and the east south-east …

Although there was very flat riding for the first 30 kilometres we would end up with nearly 1 percent of total elevation, thanks to one major hill and then more steady low percentage climbing …

We started the day at around 250 metres above sea level and finished it at 725 metres above sea level, so a real gain of nearly five hundred metres which took us up into proper alpine villages. As I sit here typing this in the extended evening light I can see the town’s church steeple, and behind it a castle that looks like it’s in pretty good condition, unlike another only about a kilometre or so away that I will share with you later. Further around the panorama at the head of the a cirque is a higher mountain with scree slopes and a grassy area that looks like it was affected by avalanche activity sometime within living memory. Birds are singing; otherwise it is very quiet this Sunday evening.

So back to the ride. The flat riding along the river gave us every opportunity to drink in the scenery about us at our leisure.

This really is apple country, and I really loved it the way growers made use of ever bit of space they had available to them to put in apple trees. At one point between us and the railway line there was a narrow section of four rows of trees, which gradually widened out as the railway line  moved further away from the bike route.

The orchardists are so cunning in maximising the use of the land that branches occasionally stretched out over the path. Just so nice to see and ride past. I’m probably almost finished shooting bits of video of apple trees growing as we ride past because of our move into alpine terrain but I still find it hard to resist shooting video of the experience …

The higher we rode though the fewer orchards became. There was more natural vegetation covering the hillsides, with patches of grazing land amongst it …

By this time we were nearing our scheduled stop for a drink and a bite to eat. the cafe I’d found when I did the mapping for this route was directly across from a church with a nice steeple …

Inside were a couple of little kids with their mum. They’d left their tiny electric bikes parked outside on the footpath …

The only downside to this place was that unknown to me when I’d added it to the map, this cafe-bar was also a tobacconist and there were a large number of men - almost exclusively men - scoffing down espresso shots laced with sugar and sucking on cigarettes one after another. I was so taken aback what I saw when I went in to order what Di and I had in mind for our snack that I just had to take a photo …

Yes, it’s literally a wall of cigarettes, something we haven’t seen in Australia for many a year, thanks to progressive - mostly Labor - governments which have enacted legislation mandating that all this stuff be secreted away from public view. Thankfully we now have some of the lowest rates of smoking - and thereby deaths from lung cancer - in the world. T(here we go rant now done and dusted.)

Exiting that small town and getting back on the veloroute was kind of interesting: a rat run of little alleyways and two tunnels yielding passage across major roads and the railway line. Here is a little video I made of the second of those two tunnels …

Soon after our escape from this maze of alleys and tunnels we found ourselves coming to grips with the one significant climb of the day. Normally this sort of climb would only find us noting the section of switchbacks that we encountered towards the end of the 5.5 kilometre long climb …

… but the weight of stuff we’ve been carrying for a month’s flashpacking trip does make a difference. The river itself had been riding more steeply next to us as we climbed than it had been doing previously, and then the hill continued to test us for another five hundred metres or so before we reached the top so we were pleased to have a short breather once the road leveled out.

More castles started to appear …

… and the river became less tame …

I almost forgot to mention the covered bridge that we went past when we were a little bit lower down the river but not in the flattest section. It was quite a novelty; we’ve seen this sort of bridge in eastern Canada and the USofA, but generally they’ve been wider, originally designed for horse and wagon traffic. I’m not sure I’d seen one this narrow,  which it seems is primarily intended for foot traffic and protects against icing up in the winter …

Just a few kilometres before our destination for the night we entered a small town with a very conveniently located restaurant right on the route …

We both had a serve of lasagna, which was excellent and I had a beer. Di did not, preferring sparkling water. 

Across from the rest was a tiny old church with remarkably thick walls …

By now we’d left the veloroute because there isn’t a lot of accommodation available right on the route. It’s clear though that a lot of cyclists deviate from the route to find accommodation between major centres or landmarks. 

At this point we left the road that had brought us up to this small town …

The width of the roadways we were following continued to diminish and we found ourselves traversing orchardists access roads …

… an imposing old ruined castle appeared just before outside Morter …

… and we soon found ourselves entering town, but not before a few hundred metres on a well maintained walking track that was about a metre wide. Quite an amusing introduction to the town, which was larger than I expected. Just 200 metres or so up the road from our hotel is the town church …

… and this is the view from the balcony of our room …

If you look closely, you can see that church just above the large white building in the left foreground, and the castle I mentioned early in the post is a white rectangular object partially hidden behind. And that’s where I’ll finish, narrowly avoiding breaking curfew - due to not doing due diligence and proofreading this before serving it up. There’s bound to be some typos or maybe even nonsensical bits where I’ve chopped and changed things. Sorry about that. 🤷🏼‍♂️