Mountain Madness

Had no internet access for a few days so I've a lot to catch up on!

On Tuesday we said good-bye to Croatia and with it the turquoise blue Adriatic with its stony mountain backdrop and passed into, and straight through, the lush greeness of Slovenia. Into Italy where we at last found lovely quiet Italian roads, over the northern plain &, to the dramatic bare crags of the Dolomites. What superb biking roads! Joy! End of touring, start of real biking & a surfeit of mountain passes! Meet Elvie the hairpin queen! I still can't do U turns but boy can I do hairpins! ( oops! surfeit of exclamation marks too!)

At the end of Tuesday we enjoyed riding over the Falzarego and Valparola passes to the small ski town of La Villa. Next day we took the scenic route & rode two hundred miles in big circle to finish in Silandro only 65 miles from our start point.

We started with the Gardena Pass, fairly easy over open hillside, past ski lifts and with expansive views of the rugged mountain scenery. Next the Mendel Pass, through pine forest. Thirdly the Tonale Pass with a ski resort on the top. We meandered a bit up a valley full of ripe apple trees being harvested as we headed for the big one - The Stelvio!

What we hadn't realised was that the route we had taken to the start of the Stelvio took us over the Gavia Pass, which we'd not heard of previously. If we'd known what lay in store we'd have found a different way. This pass started off ok but then suddenly narrowed to a single track road. It was steep, very steep. The hillside dropped sheer away from the road at times. Where were the safety barriers? There were only short stretches with any barriers. then there were the bends..... tight, tight hairpins with rough tarmac. The best description of this road is buttock clenching! The only good thing was that it was pretty empty & we met no oncoming traffic at the really tricky bits. It peaked at just over 2,621 metres.

Once off the Gavia we rode through Bormio & up the southern arm of the Stelvio to the pass at the top. Here we had the famous view down as you see from the photo. This side has 48 hairpin bends and we stopped about half way down to take the photo looking up. This pass is a cinch! It may be 2765 metres but after the Gavia it was easy!

After a good night's sleep in Silandro ( we'd earned it!) we set off to Stuttgart to stay with LB's cousin. There was one more pass to ride first. Straddling the border between Italy and Austria is the Timmelsjoch. Considered a high pass at 2509 metres it was a doddle after the previous day.

Now we're in Verdun, in France. Tomorrow we'll reach Calais & will stay there overnight and get an early Eurotunnel train on Sunday.

Elvie

nb top two photos are the Stelvio, bottom three are the Timmelsjoch.