Lake Garda

The greenway we were following to the Northern end of Lake Garda showed signs of the tourism hotspot this area had to offer. We saw more bike shops and campsites along the way and a few signs to some bike trails. We were tempted to stop and do some riding but decided to hold out for some riding once we found a place to sleep for the night.

Aggressive downhill on a greenway

We stopped at a bike shop along the way to find a map and some potential trail options. We saw that there were lots of mountain bike “trails” with some single track sections scattered throughout. The shop owner mentioned that the better free ride areas were farther West and the other mountain bike trails were on the North side of the lake.

We rode on until we reached Torbole where we set ourselves up at the first campground we came across with beach access.

Despite being in the busy season in a very touristy area, we were able to camp there fairly cheaply since we only rented a half size site. For most of the RV campers this would be an issue, but for us it was not a problem since we only have a tent and 2 bikes.

For the rest of the day we decided to find a trail to ride. We checked out our trail map and chose a shorter 20 km ride which started 12 km away. The east side of the lake was filled with smaller beach towns similar to the one we were staying at and had some great views of the protruding mountains along the lake side.

The trail was very difficult to find, since it began by climbing up one of the mountain roads, and our trail map lacked road names. We eventually found our way and saw some faded bike markers that assured us we were on the right path. We somehow always seem to find the steepest climbs during our adventure and this trail was no exception. At times, it seemed like walking would be faster but we continued up. The descent was very steep and rocky, much like the Dolomites. The trail was loose and unmaintained making the descent another white knuckle ride.

Half way down, the trail opened up to the lake to show off its beauty. The downhill after this point was more like what we enjoy riding, but was mostly double track trails back to a paved road to town. We finished with a quick ride back to our campsite for a total of around 40 km in addition to our morning of touring.

The next day we hung by the beach a bit. The very north side of the lake was filled with windsurfers. In the morning when the winds are low, all of the beginners are out on the water taking lessons. By the afternoon, the wind picks up enough to make waves that could pass as an ocean front, and the expert wind surfers come out to take advantage.In the early afternoon, w headed south to a friend’s house in Desanzano. What we thought would be a short ride ended up turning into a half days journey since Lake Garda is Italy’s largest lake. Since we had already ridden a third of the way down on the east side of the lake the previous day to get to our trail ride, we rode down on the west side for a change of scenery. The terrain on this side is very different, so much that it requires over a half dozen tunnels for the road to get through the mountains, one of which being 3 km long. We found our way to our friend Valeria’s home where we relaxed until dinner and shortly after a group of her friends came over for a dessert party.

The next morning we walked into town for a drink and to sightsee. We saw the local castle and some ruins from an ancient Roman town.  Later on after some pool time, we took a tour of Lake Garda on the family boat. We saw a beautiful private residence on the water which used to be a castle, an ancient Roman spa, a beautiful rock formation where we went swimming, and stopped at another castle that was larger and accommodating for tourists.

The next day two other friends of Valeria’s were flying into Milan so we all took a day trip together along with one of Valeria’s other friends who is an Engineer Architect. We saw the Duomo, walked the famous and expensive shopping district of Milan (and tried on the most hideous cloths we could find), saw the first theater in Italy and the first Roman Catholic church, and walked through the cities castle. Valeria’s friend was able to give us our own private tour since he knew lots of Milan’s history.

The following day we each went off on our own to find some entertainment. We both had plans to take the ferry back to the northern side of the lake, but ran into difficulties since only a few of the ferries will take bikes. Matt found several unique beaches along the South part of Lake Garda. The best beach was one that beautiful clear shallow water with flat rock for 100 meters from shore. Andrew decided to take a short ride around the lake, before heading back to the house and joining our host family for lunch and another boat ride on the lake. We regrouped that evening for a dinner party that Valeria was hosting with more of her friends coming over.

We spent a few hours the next morning walking around a nearby city, Verona. This popular tourist town had an ancient Roman amphitheater which is still used today for shows.

We visited Juliet’s house of the Capulet family from the fictional story “Romeo and Juliet.” It is tradition to grab the statue of Juliet’s breast, and you can see the right side is shiny and clean compared to the rest of her. There was a line of people waiting to partake in this tradition. In Milan there is a large tile of a Blue Bull where it is tradition to spin on your heal 7 times on the Bull’s testis when you come to Milan. This was evident since there was a large divot in the tile. Another tradition we heard of was to touch the foot of St. Peter at St. Peters Basilica in Vatican city.

The last landmark we saw in Verona was to go up to the bell tower. From the top, there was an amazing view of the city and parts of the cities surrounding wall.

We rested and researched the rest of the day to figure out our plan to Zurich. Since we were running out of time, the next morning we took a train to Lake Como, another beautiful lake city on the border of Switzerland.

Out of the Dolomites

Even though we left Cortina heading in the same direction that we came in, we decided that it would be nice to try a different road rather than simply backtrack. We picked a road off of our map (which again lacks topographical information) and headed out of town. The signs as we left town said that there was a mountain pass in about 20km, and we soon found out that we would be climbing for the entire distance to the pass. About half way there, we came to an intersection that looked like it would hopefully bypass our climb and keep us headed in the right direction so we made the turn. It wasn’t long before we started climbing again on our way towards Passo Gaiu.

We got lots of encouragement on the way to the top from various people including a supporter of a guided cycling tour that passed by, an older couple picking pine cones on the side of the road (we found out later that the seed inside is one of the ingredients for home made pesto), and a couple of friendly honks from our Slovenian friends that we met at the Cortina campground and happened to drive past. Towards the top of the climb, we began seeing paint on the roads and realized that there were messages left over from the Giro d’Italia where some of the worlds best cyclists road the same climb just a couple of months ago.

We could tell we were approaching the summit as the paint on the roads became more common, and before long we arrived at Passo Gaiu. We stood at 2236 meters of elevation, having left Cortina a couple of hours earlier at just over 1200 meters.

We didn’t stay long at the top since it was pretty chilly and getting late. The ride down was fast and fun, with a series of signs to countdown each of the 28 hairpin turns during our descent. We rode into a town called Alleghe which was another typical Dolomite small ski town.

We asked some locals at an outdoor store if there was a campground or anywhere else that we could camp for free. There was a campground up the road but also a place by the park that was free. We were confused since we only saw a children's playground which we were not comfortable staking up a tent at a children’s park, but decided to check it out anyway. Just before the playground was a parking lot that RVs could stay for free but lacked the amenities of a campground. We weren’t staying there long so we thought this might work to save some money.  We met an older couple parked there who didn’t speak any English but with some hand jestured comunication they offered to move their RV forward so that our tent was hidden from the road and had some extra cover from the wind.

We cooked pasta for dinner but since we only had a jar of store bought sauce, they brought out some of their homemade sauce that was more appropriate with our pasta. The couple also brought us red wine, salami, and cookies for us to make our meal more complete. Later that night we had some Italian whiskey (Grappa) to help us sleep and warm our stomachs. Even though we were only 1000 meters in elevation the town was pretty cold with the high peaks surrounding the lake and town.

This town surprisingly seemed like a great place to mountain bike since we saw more “Welcome Mountain Bikers” signs and bikes everywhere. A quick search online sent us to Hotel Alleghe where we might receive some help finding the trails. Speaking to a few people Matt was led to the bike shop connected to the hotel where an older cyclist known for being a great rider and someone who knows all the local trails pointed out several routes, but recommended the “Superbike” trail which was 41 km with lots of climbing, but also fast and fun descents.

With some hesitance we started off on the Superbike route.The route starts on the pavement with lots of climbing up to the top of the first ski lift. Once the pavement ended we began climbing up a steep gravel road up the ski mountain where we met lots of hikers. After looking at the elevation profile some more and the type of trail marked on the map we decided to turn around since the downhill would be similar to what we found in Cortina. We would be grabbing the brakes the whole way down which would make the climb not worth the effort.

Instead we went to a few shops in town, ate, and cleaned up at the campsite down the road. The more trails we rode in the Dolomites, the more we realized that Europeans have a different understanding of mountain biking than we do back in the States.

Early the next morning we said goodbye to our campsite (RV Parking lot) neighbors who appreciated the company as much as we did. We rode off, set to get to the Trento area and on our way to Lake Garda. We rode until the early afternoon and took a break for some well deserved gelato. Only a few minutes after sitting down we drew a small crowd of folks who were interested in our trip and were excited to find out that we were Americans that came all this way to ride through part of the country. Shortly after our stop, Andrew ran over some glass in one of the tunnels and came out with a flat rear tire. We tried to insert a tube, but found that the spare tube had a tear in it and would not hold air. We also tried to patch the tube, but were unable to get it to work due to the size of the tear in the tube. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and all of the bike shops were closed, se we were forced to walk the last couple of kilometers to a nearby campground on Lago di Corlo.

The campground employee informed us that the nearest bike shop was several towns away and would be difficult for us to reach since Andrew couldn’t ride there. We decided to instead walk to the train station in the morning and take a train to Trento, where we could find a bike shop with tubes to fix the flat tire. We began making our way to the town with the train station, which turned out to be much further away than it appeared on the map.

Matt rode ahead to check things out at the station, while Andrew continued to walk his bike. As he walked, another cyclists rode by and wanted to help, despite not speaking any English. Andrew “explained" the situation that a new tube was needed. The cyclist understood and said he would be back in 10 minutes before riding away. After the 10 minutes had passed, the cyclists returned in his car with a couple of different tubes to choose from. He said that the tubes all had patches in them and may not be the best, so he insisted that we remove the wheel and hop in his car to go get a new tube. He drove us to a bike rental stand a few kilometers down the road that operated out of a gas station, where we were able to buy new tubes and get the rear tire inflated and ready to ride again. He then drove Andrew back to the spot where we had left Andrew’s bike and where Matt was waiting.

Andrew and the cycling good Samaritan.

Since we both had fully functioning bikes again and we had missed the train that we were hoping to catch, we decided to just ride for the rest of the day and get close to Trento by bike. We found a nice bike path that would take us almost the entire way, and even stopped at a restaurant on the side of the path that catered to the cyclists riding by.

After riding for most of the afternoon, we came across a lake with several different campgrounds. We checked with one of them and found the prices to be significantly higher than other areas, so we continued down the road hoping to find something better.

After riding for another hour and a half we were running out of time to find a camping spot and our options were not looking good. It appeared as if we would need to either backtrack to the campgrounds near the lake that we had passed by or keep riding into Trento and find somewhere in the city.

After asking a few locals for a good place to stay, one family offered to let us pitch our tent in their garden, They were on the way to dinner when we saw them, but said we should wait until they came back to head to their house. We set up our stove on the side of the road and made ourselves some food while waiting for the family to return. Not long after finishing our dinner, the father of the family came by and showed us the way to their house where he let us shower and offered us clean shirts to wear for the evening. Once the rest of the family returned, we sat outside enjoying gelato and a couple of drinks while telling stories of our trip and getting to know our new friends. By the time were ready for bed, they even offered to let us come in and sleep in the spare room downstairs to make sure we didn’t get rained on.

We awoke bright and early in the morning to have breakfast with the family before setting out towards Lake Garda. We passed through Trento as well a couple of long uphill tunnels on the way over the mountains before descending down through a series of small towns. Thanks to our early start, we were able to get to the northern shore of Lake Garda by lunchtime.

Into the Dolomites

Editor’s Note: We have been asked to write a few guest posts about our trip for singletracks.com and tripleblaze.com. The first of our articles talks about the trail riding we did in Cortina, and you can click here to check it out.

Day 1

We left Venice Sunday afternoon to headed north to spend a few days in the Dolomites; unique and beautiful mountains that many people have suggested we visit. We were unable to find free internet in Venice, so we decided not to plan our route ahead of time and to try using just our 1:800,000 scale map of Italy for navigation. Leaving the city was very difficult, with few small quiet roads leaving the city in the direction we were going and no detailed map to see where we were going. Eventually we wandered around until we found a way over the canals and railroad tracks and found the route we were looking for.

The riding was smooth from that point until the next city we encountered, Treviso. We stopped to get a kabob for lunch which provided us some good cheap food as well as something different from the typical pizzerias and ristorantes. After eating, we asked the worker behind for directions, so he told us which direction to head and then said to follow the river out of town.

This would have worked well if there were only one river,  but with several rivers and streams intersecting and branching off (we found out later this made of a moat system around the main center of town), we were once again turned around and lost. We were eventually able to use a saved Google map and map from one of the local bike share stations to find our current location and figure out how to get out of town.

As we rode, we began to see the mountains of Northern Italy rise up before us, which was exciting following the hundreds of kilometers of flat hot farmland leading into and out of Venice.

As we began climbing, we discovered that we would not be riding on quiet mountain roads as we had hoped, but instead would be sharing the road with a fair amount of cars and countless numbers of motorcycles. As in the States, the winding mountain roads are a big attraction for motorcyclists and hearing the high revving engines as we climbed up through the valley nearly deafened us. This also meant that finding a suitable free camping spot would be very difficult, since anything near the road would be very loud.

We only knew of one campground along our route, but estimated earlier in the day that it would be too far to reach by nightfall. Surprisingly, we asked a local about a good place to camp and he said that the campground we were looking for was only a few kilometers away. We climbed the last few km and then descended down to Lago di Santa Croce, while in awe of the beauty of the lake and surrounding mountains. It was late in the day, but the water was still full of windsurfers and kite boarders as we coasted into the campground. We checked in for the night, and pitched our tent near another campsite with mountain bikes locked up hoping to find some information on the local trails from our neighbors.

Day 2

We awoke the next day and decided that with the beautiful scenery and lots of recreation opportunities, Lago di Santa Croce would be an excellent place to spend an extra day. We postponed our plans to ride further into the Dolomites and went in search of a bike shop that could give us some info on local trails, but when we asked at the front desk of the campground we were told that the closest bike shop was 20 km away. We were able to get a trail map, but most of the trails were in the high mountains which would mean a couple of hours of climbing before we even started the trails. Instead of killing our legs to get to the high elevation bike trails, we decided to instead do a hike that began at the campground and took us up one of the smaller mountains.

The hike began on a path that ran along the lake, before turning into one of the small villages nearby and following a road through town. Eventually, we made our way back onto a dirt road which climbed steeply for a few kilometers before topping out at a church. We stopped at the church to enjoy the view and began our descent back down. The trail back down was very fun with excellent scenery and several cool trailside features such as a waterfall, ancient Roman road, and small cable car used to transport materials up and down the mountain.

 

After arriving back at the campground we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging at the beach.

That night we talked with our camping neighbors who were visiting from Austria and had come to the lake to go kite-boarding. We traded stories for a little while about our trips and home country.

Day 3

We left the lake on Tuesday and continued north on our way to Cortina.

The road we were riding on seemed to get busier and busier the farther north we went. We passed through an 1800 meter tunnel and shortly after a 2300 meter tunnel which was pretty exciting, but very stressful. The tunnels are dark, cold, and very loud with the uneasiness of the wind knocking you over every time a truck passed by.

We eventually saw a smaller road nearby that followed the river and highway we were on that seemed like a quiete,r safer road to travel on, which it was. Instead of long busy tunnels we were welcomed with quiet windy small roads around each mountain instead of through it.

The route was not nearly as hilly as we were expecting, and things went well enough that we arrived in town by 4:00 in the afternoon despite our first flat (which was not our last that week) and stopping extra for some great views.

We checked out a couple of the different campgrounds and decided on one for our visit where we ate some food and set out into town. The downtown of Cortina was much more posh than we were expecting, with designer clothing stores lining the streets. We were able to track down a bike shop just before closing to see about fixing Andrew’s freehub, but were told to return in the morning. We took one of the free trail maps to plan our next days ride and made plans to return to the shop.

We went back to camp to cook dinner and get showered up, where one of the locals told us of a cool bar in town where we could hang out and grab a drink later that night. We made our way back into town to check it out around 10, and found that it was infact an interesting place with lots of people and several decorations highlighting the Cortina 1956 Olympics. We never saw the campground employee, but decided to call it a night and head back to prepare for the next day’s ride.

Day 4

After breakfast, we geared up and set out to do the first mountain bike ride of our trip. Before hitting the trails though, we stopped back by the bike shop and had the mechanic take a look at Andrew’s freehub. He, like most Italian bike mechanics, had never dealt with Chris King hubs but was eventually able to figure everything out and got it back in working condition. With the bike finally working, we hit the trails for an all day ride, including a great lunch at an Austrian style mountain hut.

Day 5

In the morning we went into town to find internet to figure out plans for the next few days and to restock on patches and tubes following a few flat tires while trail riding the previous day. After coming back from town, the rainy day moved our neighbors closer under the trees at our campsite. Three were from Slovenia and the fourth was an American who all came there for a vacation to rock climb. We talked for a while and had beers and coffee. The American laughed watching us cook and eat on the ground since we don’t have the room for chairs nor do we want to haul the extra weight. He did a similar trip in New Zealand for 9 months by bike and also spent his time sitting on the bare ground during his trip so he understood. They encouraged us to check out parts of Eastern Europe and pointed out some nice areas in Slovenia to bike. We’ll see what happens in a few months, maybe we’ll make it that way for a visit.

Day 6

We decided to get an early start and head to Lake Garda to spend extra time there, but decided to do one last mountain bike ride before leaving town. One of the local shops recommended a route which featured the only singletrack in town, which we rode before packing up camp and set out touring again.

The Assortment of Places We Slept in Italy

View from Andrea’s Apartment in Rome

Woods behind a castle in Capranica

Behind the bushes in the parking lot of the ristorante (where we ate dinner as well) south of Siena

Hostel in Siena

Woods near a park 10 km south of Florence.

 

Hotel in Florence

View up the steep stairs to our room in Cinque Terre (first night)

4 little beds in a hostel room in Cinque Terre (other nights)

Wooded area in a park across the river from Mantova

Farmer’s field southwest of Venice

Campground “hostel bunk” outside of Venice.

View from the nearby campsite at Lago di Santa Croce

 

View from campsite in Cortina and Slovenian friends

Free RV parking near Lake Alleghe (Note tent behind RV)

Home of friendly Italian strangers near Trento who let us use their floor for the night

View from the campground beach on the north side of Lake Garda

View from our friend Valeria’s home on the south side of Lake Garda

Venice

We arrived at our campsite outside of Venice in the early afternoon on Friday, our friend Dina who spent the week in Lake Garda would meet us there a few hours later. We spent the time getting ourselves cleaned up and trying to find free internet which we succeeded at  for a short period of time. After Dina showed up we all walked out to the bus stop and waived down the next bus we saw (which is something we noticed others doing when they wanted to get on a bus since they won’t stop at every stop). This we found out would be a mistake.

A bus ride that should have taken 20 minutes seemed to take much longer, and it did since it was the wrong bus. As soon as we figured this out we were already very far from the campsite and Venice so we got off at the next stop and tried to figure out what to do. After asking some locals, we got on two different busses and arrived at Venice 2 hours later. The main piazza where the bus stop and train station are located was filled with tourists, and it was hard to believe all these people could fit on the side walks and bridges without being pushed into the canals.

Venice was very beautiful and impressive but is very difficult to get around, even with a map. With over 100 “islands” and over 400 bridges it is easy to get lost in the many dead ends. Looking at the map and walking around feels like you are a part of an enormous labyrinth, but it is all so amazing that it’s hard to get frustrated and at times pleasant to find yourself lost and away from the tourists on the main streets.

We made our way back to the campsite after asking a bus driver which exact bus we should take to get us home. The campsites in Europe are much different than the state park campgrounds in the States. Here some might have pools, hot tubs, clothes and dish washing stations, restaurants, markets, while others won’t have toilet paper, sitting toilets (only squatting), or even soap. We have also noticed many older couples own permanent campsites with an rv trailer and often a very nice wood addition where they spend most of their “holiday” at the campsite.

The next day we all set out to see more of Venice. We found that it was very difficult to see all of Venice on foot since it is a maze and very large. A water taxi would allow us to see more by water but it was expensive. We did decide to take a Gondola ride which was a bit shorter and slower but very relaxing and offered an unexpected history lesson from the Gondolier, we found out that almost everyone needs a special license to be on the water in Venice but Gondolier’s require schooling for three years and must pass four separate exams before they can start their career.

One of the land marks that we wanted to see was the San Marco Piazza, we made our way there through another smaller piazza where we were greeted with an older local who was singing to the crowd surrounding the the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

San Marco Piazza was filled with lots of tourists which made sense, since it is a must see landmark of Venice. After taking in all of the sights, we got out the map and made our way back to the bus station. We cooked some dinner back at the campsite and enjoyed our last evening together before Dina flew home the next day and we continued on our bike tour.