I think 130 miles via the Offenpass, Pass dal Fuorn, Passo dell Umbrail and Stelvio was perhaps a little more than my system was expecting. Weirdly and for the first time in my life, I woke in the middle of the night absolutely craving water and sugar, I ended up diluting carbohydrate gels with water and gulping it down – not a good night.
It wasn’t until I went down for breakfast that I got a sense of the Rosengarten hotel. We were deep in the Italian Tyrol but the place should really have been over the border in Austria. The waitresses were of that wholesome, blonde variety. They paid us almost no attention, choosing instead to bestow their favours on a group of rather enigmatic, elderly gentleman who were continuing a clandestine conversation under the ever watchful eye of an Alsatian. When after breakfast an earnest young man escorted us down to the cellar ostensibly to collect our bikes, I wasn’t sure we’d ever see each other again.
We escaped from the hotel and straight into the first climb of the day towards the Passo St. Pellegrino in the Dolomites. This was pretty unforgiving as there were few bends or hairpins to offer relief to tired limbs, just straight on up. We made it to the pass by 12:00 and found a wonderful spot for lunch overlooking the mountains. Crouque Monsiure and Coke set us up nicely for the long down hill ride through the awe inspiring Dolomite National Park and out onto the Northern Italian plane.
In the hot afternoon sun we started to engage with the Friday afternoon traffic as we took the main roads towards Treviso. In an attempt to get away from the lorries and crazy drivers we took some back roads around Zero Branco and Scorze but this only resulted in us getting lost and adding a few extra miles to our journey. We made it to Mestre by about 20:00 and started looking for the well hidden turning onto the causeway. Eventually we made it onto the island by 21:00 and after the compulsory photo call by the ‘Venice’ sign we picked our way along the canals and over bridges until we found the
Hotel Al Sole in Santa Croche, a stately old house and probably the only hotel I’ve ever stayed in where the rooms were twice as high as they were wide.
We got changed and went out for our celebration dinner at a restaurant round the corner from the hotel. Fish, pasta, very unhealthy desserts, lots of booze and that quiet feeling of satisfaction of a challenging job, well done.
Today’s Stats
Total ride 973 miles
Total ride today 130 miles
Average today 14.3 mph
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