Day 5

August 8, 2003

Ora, Italy to Brixen, Italy

58 Kilometres

On Friday we hit the bike path again. We passed lots of other cycle tourists on it. Eventually the bike path ended, and we ended up back on the main road. The map showed that we could either take that road, through a tunnel, or go through the centre of Bolzano, which was out of the way. Ursula decided we should take the tunnel.

When we go into Bolzano, things weren't signed well. We asked a guy for directions, but his directions involved going the wrong way down a street. I went the other way and found the tunnel. So I barreled through. It was long, and the traffic was nuts, and cars honked at us. When we got to the other side Ursula was screaming at me. Apparently there was a sign saying that pedestrians and cyclists weren't allowed in the tunnel. I hadn't seen that. Eventually I convinced her that that was the right tunnel, even if we weren't allowed in it.

We continued on. The traffic was bad. It was not fun. There were two roads through the valley, the highway, and the autobahn. I was hoping that the autobahn would draw off most of the traffic, but it didn't. At one point, I dropped my chain when shifting into the granny gear. And there were no towns, and we had no food. We finally found a town with a little store, and got food at 11:55. At 12:00 it closed. Just up the street was a little park, where we ate lunch and napped. In the park was a map showing a bike path, so we decided to take that. It was much nicer, but hillier and windier.

It took us into Klausen. Another quaint town. We stopped at a restaurant, looking for gelato, but they didn't have any. But we found some up the street. We wandered through town. Stopped for groceries. Stopped at a fountain, where I discovered that I was missing a glove. I retraced my steps, and found it way back at the first restaurant.

From there we continued on the road to Brixen. Again the traffic was bad. The map showed a campground, which wasn't in the literature, although a guy in the information place in Bolzano said it was there. But we couldn't find it. We asked some locals, and they didn't know about it. We found an information place, and they didn't know about it. So we went to the one in the book.

It turned out to be the most expensive campground of our trip. And the tent area was a crappy place beside the kitchen. It was another hotel place, so we went for a swim in the pool. The restaurant was outrageously expensive, so we walked to a pizzeria, and actually had pizza.


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