June 25th: Prato Allo Stelvio to Berghotel Franzenshohe

When I looked out the window in the morning, it was cloudy, but the forecast still called for good weather. Breakfast was generous, but when we rode downtown to the supermarket to pick up snacks (there are no grocery stores all the way up the Stelvio, except for the hotel/restaurants that might sell the occasional snack), I felt raindrops.

Nevertheless, we proceeded to climb the Stelvio, since I didn't actually think we would make it up to summit that day, despite a fairly early start. As we left town, I started to warm up, and could shed my arm and leg warmers. The initial parts of the Stelvio climb from the East are fairly easy.

Indeed, we soon had to put on sunscreen, since once past the initial gallery, there actually wasn't a lot of shade. In Trafoi, we passed a dirt parking lot, and we pulled into it to rest. There was a woman there, standing by her car, but she didn't look like she was in a hurry to go anywhere. "Are you going up the Mountain?" I asked, "Because if you are, maybe we can trouble you to carry our bags?" "Sure, of course! I'm waiting for my boyfriend, because he's cycling up the hill!" This was great. I gave her the name of our hotel, and told her that there were 48 numbered turns on the road, and the hotel was at the 22nd. I gave her 2 business cards, one for the hotel, and one for her in case she needed to call or text me.

"We're from the Netherlands, and we're doing this big trip in between jobs." "Wow, that sounds great! I always thought Europeans had lots of vacation..." "But yeah, we wanted an even longer one. One that would let us drive across Europe to Morroco."At this point, I had finally caught my breath and we gave her our panniers. Resuming our upward path, the bike immediately felt lighter. I decided that this meant we could easily go over the Stelvio today.

At 1800m, however, at Rocca Bianca, we saw our trail angel standing by the side of the road, looking very distressed. She waved us over to the restaurant parking lot. "I'm so very sorry. I have to give you back your bags. I tried calling you, but I had no cell signal. I am too terrified to go up the mountain any further. I will go down and wait for my boyfriend at the bottom." "Oh, no problem! You saved us 400m of vertical gain having to carry our bags!" She was very apologetic and I didn't want her to feel bad --- if you'd never driven in the mountains, Stelvio is downright scary, with tour buses making 3 point turns at every hairpin turn, and if she had a stick shift she would risk stalling out each time she had to come to a stop. In many other countries Stelvio would be a one way road or restricted to smaller vehicles, but this was Italy and the road was a "free-for-all." We took the panniers and mounted them back on the bike. We were only 400m  of elevation gain from the hotel, but of course, you always immediately feel the additional 20 pounds of load on the bike, no matter how strong you are, and we were definitely  not that strong. Pass Rocca Bianca, the road begins a series of switchbacks as it climbs steeply up the mountain.

We started to see the hotel, and got there at a very healthy time of 1:00pm. We stopped for lunch at the hotel, but over lunch Bowen lobbied for staying at the hotel. We'd only gone 12 miles but had climbed 4000' in that time, 3000' of which was carrying a load. With adults, I would never settle for staying at the hotel, but I reflected that Bowen at 6 years  old had just spent 4 hours crawling along at 3mph. The forecast for the next day was good weather as well, and the hotel was reasonably priced. After making him eat every morsel of food he ordered for lunch to make sure he was serious about wanting to stay here, I assented to his request and booked a room.

I'd last stayed at Berghotel Franzenshohe in 2007, in inclement weather that precluded any exploration. But this time, checking in at 2:00pm meant we could go outside for a walk in the hiking trails behind the hotel. And boy, what a view!

We never wandered more than about 15 minutes from the hotel, but in that time I'd found scenery to match or exceed the other places I'd seen in the Alps. I began to think that all those times when I'd just zipped past the hotel on the way to Bormio or Livigno, I maybe should have stopped and tarried a little. When I tell adults that I'm taking Bowen on this massive (unplanned) journey through the Alps, they have a tendency to say things like: "What a wonderful learning experience for your child!" In reality, however, Bowen was teaching me as much as I was teaching him. There's certainly a value in tarrying and slowing down, and there aren't many 6-year old children who've had the desire (or opportunity) to tour like this and yet would choose to climb high passes. As we walked along, Bowen would sing his Stelvio song:

I considered how lucky I was, that my son loved the mountains as much as I did, and appreciated scenery, something that many adults tell me that children don't care about. I wrote a short poem in my head:

Two souls, one bike, across the alps they went,
One brought his strength, but the other his heart he lent,
Day by day they traveled, until the father learned,
The wisdom of the child cannot be earned,
But must through attention be heard,
And his heart's eyes and ears bestirred.

Dinner at the Berghotel is a half-pension: you don't get a menu, just what's being cooked that night. This was Bowen's first formal western dinner, so I explained the placement of the utensils and plate, how you use the outside utensils first, then the insider ones and the spoon furthest away was for dessert. Service isn't American style: they take away your first dish and then you get your second one. To my surprise, Bowen liked the Gnocchi and soup, and of course the Salad buffett.

By the time the main course came, he was quite finished with dinner, and only picked at it, but I was hungry enough to eat his portion. To my surprise, he didn't want the ice cream dessert. (He couldn't have the regular dessert because it had nuts that he was allergic to) I ran out after dinner and snapped one last shot of the moonrise with Alpenglow.

There was no question in my mind that bringing a large sensor point and shoot camera was the right move for this trip. I would have cried bitter tears having to shoot today's scenery with a smartphone camera.

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June 24th: Selva di Gardena to Prato Allo Stelvio

The morning that greeted us as we left Selva di Gardena was beautiful, with not even a cloud in the sky. I did a double-take and checked my phone for a refreshed forecast but it hadn't changed. So off we went down to Ortisel. Komoot kept trying to direct us to a bike path but I knew from experience that if traffic is not bothersome, the main road is much faster on a descent than any bike path, and a lot more fun to boot.

In Ortisel, I paused at a bike shop to check for directions, and then we waved goodbye to the Gardena area and started up the climb over to Kastelrotto. The climb was surprisingly steep, reminding us that our performance the previous day was also partly due to not having to carry our panniers on the bike. It didn't take long before we warmed up and I was putting on sunscreen again. It was good to see that the route I was on was frequented by cyclists, who once again would compliment us as they rode past. It turns out that this route was part of a loop with 2 passes: Passo Pinei (which we would climb), and a further road up to Siusi which could take you back to Selva di Gardena with sufficient climbing.

With all the climbing we had in our legs from yesterday, we were quite happy to see the pass sign, which at 1437m meant that we had only done 200m of climbing from the valley. From there, the descent to Castelrotto was fast, and we arrived at the Spar to buy some fruit and chocolate to eat while the morning was still cool, having learned that the weather was too warm to buy chocolate to carry in the saddlebag.

Past Castelrotto, I started riding up towards Siusi but then did a map check and realized that Lukas's directions meant "ride in the direction of Siusi but don't actually go there." From there, we had a beautiful descent towards Fie. The directions from Lukas was to head towards Atzwang from the old road, but I must have missed a turn. Reasoning that descending through obnoxious tunnels was not that big of a deal compared to having to climb through them, I followed the main road down through fast and furious turns and descents until the road dumped us out near Prato Isarco right in front of the bike path that I had used to climb up to Steinegg 4 years ago.

From there, it was a 6km ride to the Bolzano train station, where we bought train tickets to Schluderns, with a transfer in Merano. The ticket counter agent looked at the bike and said, "I'm not sure if you can find a space for the bike, but I'm willing to sell you the tickets if you want to try." It turned out that at noon on a Sunday there was plenty of room for the bike, and we could get the bike easily on the train to Merano, though there was a mad scramble while the conductor taught me how to validate the tickets, using a machine that wasn't the same as the ones we had used to get from Verona to Bolzano!

In Merano, we did the transfer with the help of a British gentleman who owned a tandem back home and felt compelled to help us out. He was impressed that we were going to attempt the Stelvio, and had done the Sella Rondo the day before. While on the train, I asked Bowen if he wanted to tackle the Stelvio immediately and ride up to Trafoi, or whether he wanted to stop in Prato Allo Stelvio and then do the Stelvio the next day. "Stay in Prato Allo Stelvio tonight" was the answer. It being a Sunday, we lucked out and found a cheap place to stay on booking.com that wasn't normally available.

I'd bought the tickets for Schluderns since I knew it had a train station from the 2016 tour. In retrospect, Sponding would have saved us a couple of Euros, and was actually closer to Prato Allo Stelvio than Schluderns and not a significant climb. But upon exiting the train station at Schluderns, I spotted an ice cream and cake shop that I hadn't noticed before, so we had lunch there, along with ice cream and cake. Both were very good, so it wasn't a wasted trip.

The ride to Prato Allo Stelvio from Schluderns was pretty, traversing the narrow part of the valley. Once at Residence Ortlerhof, the friendliness of the staff overwhelmed us, as did the facilities. The room had a kitchenette, though we weren't able to use it since the supermarkets were closed in town on a Sunday. We had dinner at a nearby pizzeria, and for desert, cherries off the tree at the Residence.

The weather was cloudy and overcast, making it easy for me to believe that it was storming over Cortina D'Ampezzo. But I wondered how on earth was it supposed to be clear on the Stelvio the next day?
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June 23rd: Sella Rondo Bike Day

Way back in  2007 when I first toured the Alto Adige valley, on my way up the Stelvio I asked a bunch of cyclists what their most beautiful ride in the area was, and they told me it was the Sella Group. I dutifully visited the Sella Group that year, and was rewarded by the sights and sounds of tour buses climbing up passes, and being stuck behind tour buses when descending. So when I saw that the Sella group was having a bike day, and the weather forecast was cooperative, I knew we had to participate.

We ate early enough to ride out from the hotel at 8:00am. In retrospect we didn't need to do this. Not only were we finished well before the 3:30pm cut off, by starting half an hour early we bore the brunt of the last minute rush of vehicles trying to get over the various passes before the roads closed. Fortunately, by the time we got to the ridge to climb over to Passo Pordoi, the road was well and truly closed.

The bike day is every bit as amazing as you might imagine. None of the other countries in the alps have regular bike days: the Germans don't do it, neither do the Swiss or the Austrians. The Gran Fondo-type events might feature road closures, but those require pre-registration in advance and the entry fees are usually high, and in some cases you might even need to be lucky enough to win a place. To my mind, this makes up for the insane driving you frequently see in Italian roads. The organizers suggested doing the Sella Rondo counter-clockwise, and most people followed their suggestions. This was great, since it kept the speed differentials down, and the roads were narrow enough that there weren't even center-line markings on them!

Along the road were photographers represented by FotoStudio3. They had clocks next to the photo stations so you could search for your pictures afterwards. I should have taken pictures of those clocks, but in any case I couldn't find any photos of us except the one that Hina found, since there were so many cyclists at the event! Every where you looked, especially after we descended to the saddle between Sella and Pordoi, where hordes of cyclists were climbing up from Canazei, which was apparently a much more popular lodging destination for cyclists than Selva di Gardena. Here's the thing about doing the Bike Day on a tandem: first, we were the only non-electric tandem that we could see. Every other tandem we saw was electric-assisted. The other thing was that every cyclist who passed us (which was most of them!) would say, "Bravo!" or "Grande!" Some would even speak to us, and tell us what a cool bike we had. I don't think I ever got so many compliments in my life for riding a bike on one ride. As is true back home, despite all the compliments on the bike, if I asked anyone if they wanted to exchange no one would take me up on the offer. 

Bowen, as usual, hadn't eaten much breakfast, and by 11:00am was quite hungry. The Sella Rondo bike day wasn't a supported event, but the restaurants and hotels all along the route were open, and happy to serve hungry cyclists with food, snacks, and drinks. He ate a sandwich and I ate some chocolate. While descending from Campolongo to Alta Badia to start our final climb up to Gardena, an Italian guy rode up to me and said "Piano, piano, kinder!" He was asking me to slow down so I could watch out for kids on the road? Or was he worried about mine? Bowen was a veteran of major descents at this time, and I didn't see any kids descending on the road. We did see plenty of other types of bikes, recumbents, e-bikes, even a guy towing a child in a trailer using an e-bike. Safety patrol was done by 4-wheeled dune buggies, which made the only motorized noise we would see that day once the event got going.

It was a relief when we finally made it up Passo Gardena, with only a small saddle to traverse before we began the descent back to Selva Gardena. The day clocked in at 6500' of climbing in 38 miles, and Bowen was a good sport about it all, complaining about the cold only a few times. Once we were in the hotel, we showered, tried to find the game room (which turned out to be just a bunch of toys thrown into a room), ate dinner, and spent more time in the swimming pool, as Bowen deemed the zipline at the local playground not worth the time and effort it would take to get there. My boy was definitely getting picky about ziplines and playgrounds! Miguel had yesterday mentioned that Adrenaline X-treme Adventures had the longest zipline in Europe, and I explored the idea of taking Bowen there, but nixed it when it turned out that their minimum weight for children was 35kg or 77 pounds. I could load up Bowen's camelbak with all the bricks that could fit and he still wouldn't come in close to that. My plan was to ride over Gardena to Corvara and climb up to Falzerago to Cortina over the next few days to show Bowen Misurina and maybe spend a day climbing up to Tre Cime di Laverado, a road I'd never visited before, but the forecast had turned sour in that direction, indicating thunderstorms were coming. Unusually, the forecast for Stelvio was good for at least the next 3 days, so after confirming to Bowen that he still wanted to climb over to Stelvio, I sent a WhatsApp message to Lukas to confirm the route down to Bolzano, where we planned to take the train back to Schluderns for our attempt. Lukas couldn't help with luggage up the Stelvio, but after doing the Sella Rondo Bike Day, I was convinced that a half day of riding with relatively little climbing would be sufficient rest that we could make it up the Stelvio.
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June 22nd: Via Ferrata Grand Cir

It thunderstormed during the night, enough to wake me up, which wasn't a bad thing since I had some stuff that was still in the wash and needed to be taken out and air dried. I went back to sleep, and still managed to get up early enough to make breakfast for Bowen.

After breakfast, we packed up our bike, which despite being under a shelter showed signs of chain rust, left the keys in the apartment, and rode down to the train station, carrying all un-eaten food on the bike since we knew we were getting a taxi transfer. It turned out that our taxi driver was none other than Lukas Panitz, the owner of Base Camp Dolomites and a mountain guide and tour organizer. While driving up, I asked him about good paths down from Selva di Gardena on the bike, as I didn't think that there was a good bike path up, something he concurred with. He said that there was a good alternative down back to Bolzano, by riding over to Castelrotto towards Siusi. "There's a plateau there, so even though you have to climb a bit, the rest of it is easy riding, and it's away from most traffic." I asked him for ideas for what to do on our free day in Selva, and he suggested that if we were lucky, we might be able to get a mountain guide to do a Via Ferrata which was something his daughter practiced and enjoyed. He named Piccolo Cir and Gran Cir as two options that we could potentially do with a 6 year old. I told him about our consideration to do the Stelvio and he said to ping him in case he could find a way to help us.

I'd heard Arturo talk about Via Ferratas before, but I had no idea that a little kid as young as 6 might be expected to do it. We rode over to the tourist information office after dumping our bags at the Residence Antares. We could have walked it, but Lukas had emphasized that we might have already arrived too late to get a mountain guide for the day, and while we could do it on Sunday, this was the optimal day to have an off-bike activity. The tourist information office told us that the mountain guide office was already closed for the day, but then she called one of the mountain guides she knew and he was available and would meet us at the office!

Miguel met us and told me the price would be 200 Euros. Well, I didn't know squat about climbing or Via Ferratas, so I agreed and we went back to the hotel to get Bowen's sandals. Miguel looked dubiously about my cycling shoes, but I told him that that was all I had. He picked up harnesses for us, and then we headed out. Residence Antares was happy to hold our bike in the ski room, and Miguel picked us up in his car and drove us to the cable car.

The view from the top of the cable car was pretty good. On the way up, Miguel told us that Piccolo Cir was shorter but harder and Gran Cir was longer but easier, and he would suggest doing the Gran Cir first. Not knowing any better, I took his advice. In retrospect, doing the Piccolo Cir would probably have been more fun, and might have left Bowen more enthusiastic about the Via Ferrata experience.

The approach started with a hike up to the base of the wall. Bowen happily kept up with the mountain guide and walked surprisingly fast. At the base of the wall, we were asked to put on the climbing harness. I would manage my caribiners myself, but Bowen would be tied to the guide.

The climb itself felt like it was too easy, with only a few places where I felt like I ws in danger of falling. But as I climbed, I caught myself doing dumbass things, which is probably how someone could get killed doing an easy climb. For instance, you're supposed to have one caribiner clipped in at all times, but I would catch myself moving both at once.

I thought Bowen would not be happy to get dragged along by the guide, but it turned out that he was very happy to do things this way, and indeed he seemed to be having fun. In due course, we got to the top, where unbelievable views could be had, because it was such a clear day.

Unfortunately, a cold wind blew, and Bowen got cold. Once Bowen gets cold, he stops wanting to work hard, so the mountain guide half-carried and half-guided him down the mountain. There was no question that Miguel had earned his pay that day! Bowen was quite tired, but he nevertheless still walked all the way back to the cable car station for lunch. There was no question that we were going to try Piccolo Cir.

Back down in the village, Miguel showed us the zipline playground and the supermarket, and then we found an ATM so we could pay him in cash. The zipline playground wasn't good enough to hold Bowen's attention, so we went back to the hotel, where our room was finally ready for us  to move in.

It turned out that the supermarket was just behind the hotel, and the apartment was on the ground floor (even though the receptionist called it the basement, we still got plenty of natural light). I went to buy dinner and breakfast the next day. The kitchenette had no oven, so I had to be careful to buy stuff that could be cooked over a stove.

We then did our shower and laundry routine, though I didn't have to wring out everything as thoroughly since we were here for two nights and there would be time for everything to dry. We checked out the hotel's indoor pool, which was Bowen's first exposure to a European-style pool, which typically has toys like button-activated waterfalls that give you a shower, jet-streams that would push you back-wards when you pushed a button, and even bubble makers on the floor. It wasn't a very big pool, but Bowen loved being able to turn the waterfall on at will. Even the showers were kind of strange, as they had aroma therapy options, where you could push a button and get various smells in while you showered.

We had to have an early night. Technically, the Sella Rondo Bike Day started at 8:30am, but Lukas had encouraged us to get an early start because things tended to warm up in the afternoon, and of course, certain winds could build up. In any case, the Bike Day ended at 3:30pm, and given that traffic would be waiting to traverse the passes the moment they were let through, I didn't want to be on the mountain when they opened up the roads.

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June 21st: Bardolino to Bolzano

 The Hotel Bardolino's breakfast was great, and we ate quickly, packed, and left the hotel at 8:24, hoping to beat the heat. But first, we visited the Lake again to say goodbye.

Most of the climbing on the 17 mile ride from Lake Garda to Verona happened within the first half hour. Once we got out of the rim of the lake, the ride was mostly flat, and Komoot did what it does best, which was to put us onto a river-side bike path.

I couldn't argue with the views from the bike path. In Bussolengo, we ran into a mid-week market that required us to dismount and walk, but it was so interesting that I didn't mind. I gave the camera to Bowen hoping he would take a few pictures of things he thought were interesting, but all that came out were tons of pictures of my butt instead, which I can assure is not interesting.

The temperature mounted as we got into Verona, until in the last 200m to the train station, Bowen suddenly stopped complaining and just closed his eyes as though he was asleep. He would later claimed that he wasn't asleep, just that he had closed his eyes. I can believe it now, since the minute we entered the train station, his eyes opened wide and he had no sign of sleepiness, but at the time, I was convinced that he'd developed a fever and I was going to have to deal with the Italian medical system.

Things being what they were, I decided that a train ticket back to Bolzano was the right one. There was an EC German train serving Verona to Bolzano, but the ticket machine wouldn't let me buy a bike ticket! When I found one of the assistants to help me, she said that the ticket machine would only let me buy a bike ticket on the Italian trains. That train was a lot slower, but since navigating the Deutsche Bahn website on my phone would have been too slow, I just let her help me.

Italian train stations are nowhere as nice as the German or Swiss train stations: there are no ramps for the disabled or for bikes, and the elevators aren't big enough to take the tandem. Fortunately, a German man at the end of his bike tour took time off to help me move the tandem to our platform, and we boarded the Italian train with no problems, being careful to validate the train ticket before we boarded. There was already a bike on the train, and it belonged to Elisabeth, who had also ridden her bike from Laas up in the Alto Adige river down to Lake Garda and Verona. She said she was developing "sun allergies" and so had to abandon her plans to continue riding past Verona as well.

It was fascinating to hear her talk about immigration and its impact on Austria. "We're becoming a nation of immigrants too," she said. I couldn't tell from her voice and facial expression as to whether she thought it was a good thing or a bad thing, and I didn't ask. But she was very friendly and even offered to help us find a place in Bolzano, going so far as to call a friend who didn't pick up. I found an air conditioned residence apartment in Bolzano with a kitchen and a washing machine, so I wasn't too disappointed!

Arriving in Bolzano, Elisabeth offered to help us move our big heavy bike, but she had a train to transfer to, so I said that she should focus on that rather than risk missing hers. We got out of the train station just fine and rode to the address specified on booking.com, but it turned out that the Park Residence Apartments didn't have full time staff: most of the people who stayed there apparently arranged for someone to meet them at a specific time, rather than just showing up from the train station like a vagabond. Fortunately, the hotel that the apartments were connected to told me about this, and when I called them they were happy to come down and open the office so we could leave our panniers in there.

As a matter of fact, by the time I'd gotten my bike locked up, the primary receptionist had showed up early and checked us in, which meant that we could immediately move into the apartment, and rather than eating out, we could buy food from the supermarket next door and cook it, which was what we did!

After we'd eaten, I realized that if I still wanted to do the Sella Rondo bike day on Saturday, I had to find a way to get to either Canazei or one of the villages near the start, so I let Bowen take care of himself in the apartment while I went out to find the tourist information office. The tourist information office had information about the Sella Rondo bike day, but they weren't able to help with transportation. From my experience in the past, I usually made it to Canazei via Costalunga and the Karersee. But those climbs were severe, involving grades over 20% and/or long tunnel traversals. Even if I could make it over there on the tandem, I'd probably be too tired to do the actual Bike Day. The tourist information office did point me at Base Camp Dolomites, right at the Bolzano train station.

I walked over there and to my surprise they spoke English, and enthusiastically talked about providing a transfer service and suggested that I stay at Selva di Gardena, the official "start point" of the Sella Rondo Bike Day. They asked me if I had a hotel in mind, and I said, I could make a reservation right now on my smartphone. The employee looked at my phone, and then said, "Wait a minute. Let me call the hotel." He called the hotel, spoke some Italian into the phone and when the receptionist spoke to me, she quoted me a price for 2 nights at 100 Euros less than the quote on my phone! Coincidentally, that was the price Base Camp Dolomites gave me for the taxi transfer as well, so I gladly accepted and arranged for a taxi pick up at 8:30am the next day.

After that, the rest of the day was spent buying and preparing dinner, getting ibuprofen as insurance in case Bowen's behavior in the morning was indicative of a fever, and running the laundry machine. I even bought Weisswurst for breakfast the next morning. That evening, I checked Bowen's temperature a few times with my hands and they were normal. I'd wasted my money on ibuprofen, but these came in little satchels for dissolving in water so I packed a few in the panniers just in case.

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June 20th: Trento to Bardolino

We had a great breakfast and then rode down to Trentino downtown. Bowen had lost his sunglasses, and his cough which he had brought with him on the plane from California didn't seem to be getting better, so I bought a bottle of cough syrup from the pharmacy, and $3 pair of sunglasses from a Chinese-run knick-knack store. In 2010, Phil Sung told me that European cough syrup was the best tasting cough medicine in the world, and Bowen said nothing to contradict this statement, eagerly awaiting every spoonful 3 times a day. Looking at the ingredients, it looked like the cough syrup was basically honey spiced up with a few herbs like menthol and other throat-soothers no different from any cough drop sold at an American pharmacy, but with a much more pleasant taste. The pharmacist told Bowen to drink lots of water, which probably did more good to eliminate his cough than the syrup did. Bowen would insist on taking the cough syrup whether or not he had a cough for the rest of the trip until we used up the bottle.

The bike path didn't get any less boring than the day before, but with the knowledge that we had far fewer miles to cover than the day before, I was far more motivated to ride hard and move fast than the day before. Unlike the upper part of the Aldige river, this part of the bike path had far fewer water stops, and was equally unshaded, so we wanted to get it over as early as possible.

In Rovereto, there was a tourist information kiosk staffed by a woman who told us that all we had to do was to follow the bike path signs for Lake Garda. The kiosk was right next to an ice cold water fountain, so we refilled and sure enough, the bike path soon departed from the river side, and we found ourselves climbing. We were now in the Italian-speaking part of Italy, unlike the higher parts of the Aldige valley which spoke German, having been historically part of Austria until after World War 1. Once we climbed out of the Aldige valley, we saw a shaded spot with a water fountain and stopped to eat the apples so kindly given to us by our hotel just before we left. These were golden delicious apples grown on the other side of the Merano valley and tasted delicious! I'd mistaken them for granny smith apples in the past (which I hate), and now wished I'd eaten more of them on previous visits to Italy.

The ride over Passo Giovianni turned out to be much less steep than the climb up from Rovereto. Despite signs broadcasting a 10% grade or something like that, nothing we rode over fell into the "challenging" territory. Even though it was warm, a gentle headwind cooled us off, and the anti-climatic pass sign wasn't even exciting to Bowen. I suppose 287m is no big deal once you've already climbed to 1500m a couple of days before.

Once over the pass, Komoot recommended one direction while the bike path pointed to another. Sometimes this is a trap: bike paths might be optimized in the uphill direction and then not grant you a smooth descent. In this case, however, I reasoned that most people would be riding the transalp route from North to South, in which case the bike path was likely to be optimized in the direction we were going. This turned out to be correct.

From the bike path, your first sight of Lake Garda is dramatic and impressive. The road sweeps away beneath you at a steeper than 10% grade, and you cannot see the other side of the lake. "Wow, I didn't expect it to be this pretty!" I said. "Well, I did." came the reply from the back of the bike. Bowen's 6 years old and already he's hard to impress. The descent was fast and fortunately the bike route while on a road shared with cars didn't seem to have much traffic. We rode down to the lake side, found a supermarket, bought a picnic lunch, and proceeded to find a bench and picnic table at the lakeside for lunch.

There's a hard headwind blowing from the South, which I did not feel like fighting. I knew there were ferries servicing various destinations on the lake, so asked for the tourist information center and got an answer. We rode there just in time, as they were about to close. It turned out that many of the passenger ferries took bicycles, and the big ones had no problems taking the tandem, so we didn't have to take a car ferry like I thought we would have to. We could take the slower one from Torbole, where we were, or ride over to Riva di Garda where a faster ferry would depart later but arrive earlier but would skip Torbole. We decided to ride over to Riva since we were so early, and were told that Riva was  a much bigger town than Torbole and we could walk around the old town while we were waiting.

Riva di Garda was a gorgeous lakeside town and very walkable through its downtown area. We had ice cream, and then I realized that if I wanted to see Lake Garda without cycling, the ferry wasn't a bad idea, and the slower ferry would visit way more destinations than the fast one. So I found a hotel in Bardolino, and then we proceeded to buy tickets for the slow ferry and braced ourselves for a 5 hour tour of Lake Garda.

The various towns around the lake very much reminded me of the small towns we visited in Greece on our 2013 sailing trip. In many cases, the terrain was extreme, with mountains coming right down to the lake and the town simply nestled in the small flat section of lakeshore. I could see why there would be bike hotels in Garda catering to cyclists, but it was also very hot, so I guessed that it was only a cycling destination in the Spring or Fall.

Each town looked like it would be worth staying at. By the time we disembarked in Bardolino, it was 7:00pm and we were hungry, despite having eaten snacks on the ferry. We rode down the street and found our hotel.

In retrospect it wasn't a bad idea to arrive late: our hotel's AC was so old and worn that it could barely keep us cool in the evening. I expected that it wouldn't have even been able to cool our room 2 degrees if we had arrived earlier. We turned on the AC, took a shower, and hurried out to a late dinner at a restaurant hotel owned by the same owners as Hotel Bardolino, granting us a slight discount. This far south, it was not unusual to have dinner late, and even the supermarket was opened after dinner and we could buy some fruit for desert.

With the continual heat, I decided that to attempt to ride to Venice would be suicide. Since no train stations serve Garda had lines that would bring us back to Bolzano, we would have to ride to Verona to catch one. We went to bed knowing that our best bet for a cool ride to Verona would be to eat breakfast at 7:30am and then head out as quickly as possible. I pre-plotted our ride to the Verona train station, sync'd it to the Wahoo Bolt using the hotel's fast WiFi, and we went to bed with the AC running. To my surprise, I slept well, indicating that my jet-lag was finally resolved.

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June 19th: Merano to Trentino

The morning's breakfast was generous, and Bowen would develop a taste for tea after deciding that hot chocolate was too sweet for him! (Yes, I have an odd kid) He was still disappointed that we weren't going to do Stelvio but were going to keep riding down the Aldige valley until we got to Lake Garda, which I've never done. Recognizing that it was going to be a hot day, our hotel gave us ice in our water bottles, a much appreciated gesture.

The ride down Merano was easily, and just on the outskirts of Merano we found another Zipline.

I'd done the ride from Merano to Bolzano only once, and going the other way, but I'm afraid I don't have much to say about river-side bike paths. I find them fairly boring: miles after miles of same same with not much elevation gain or loss to distinguish them. The Aldige bike path is particularly bad, because there's almost no shade at all, though there are many water stops.

We stopped in a little town of Mezzocorona, following signs to a restaurant, but the food was not very good, though an ice cold coke was much appreciated. Over lunch, I searched and found a hotel in Trentino with AC and created a route for it in Komoot to sync to my computer. Once back on the bike path we didn't go 3km before finding a huge rest station with snack bar and restaurant right on the bike path! In Lavis, Komoot took us off the bike path into some local climbs which apparently would make it easier to get us to our hotel. Once in town, however, it failed, and routed us up a route that looked like it might connect, but a neighbor living on the street told us that it didn't, so it was back to having Bowen use Google Maps on the phone from the back seat to navigate, since the Wahoo Bolt would want to take hours to sync with the phone. I certainly did not appreciate the extra climbing in the afternoon heat. The hotel turned out to be a new B&B in the middle of a renovation, and wasn't really a "farm stay", more like a winery stay. The facilities were brand new, but they didn't have a restaurant yet. We got into our room and turned on the AC and kept it on while doing our shower and laundry routine. When it was dinner time, we called the number supplied by the hotel but the taxi dispatcher claimed that there were not taxis available! We walked down to the lobby and the owner of the hotel said, "We'll drive you downtown!"

Downtown Trentino was a happening place, despite the heat. We were early enough that we had no problem getting good seats and had a nice dinner, followed by ice cream. I'd noticed that there was a bus that might serve where we were staying, and sure enough, Google Maps gave me routing directions via transit. It looked like it would only be a 400m walk, but that was better than trying to get a taxi.

Well, I guessed wrong. Google Maps routed us to the wrong place via transit, and we ended up with another 1.5km of walking. That by itself was no big deal, but it was 1.5km of walking on a highway with signs that said: "No bikes." I don't know about you, but if a highway says "No bikes," walking on it would be very unpleasant as well. I tried hitch-hiking but that was a no-go, so we ended up walking.
Back at the hotel, I looked at the map and debated dropping the rest of the ride and taking the train back to Bolzano. Once I noticed that we were only about 60km from Lake Garda, however, I decided that we should at least see Lake Garda, which Bowen had started calling "Lake Gaga".
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