Cycle Tour München-Verona

The third stage was the big Alpine stage across the Brenner pass. As soon as we had left Innsbruck the road ascended steeply towards Igls and Patsch, where our group was gathered again on the central square. Luckily, it wasn't very warm, and on the pass itself it was rather chilly.

Lunch on a bench near the river Sill near Matrei and an impressive suspension bridge spanning the Sill valley also deserve to be mentioned. Apart from that it was a long tiresome slug up the mountain on our heavy bikes.

Thomas and I had a swim in the Brenner lake. It was a cold pleasure. Luckily, we were served hot coffee and biscuits afterwards.

Now the Italian border lay right in front of us and after that a splendid bicycle road through nature to Sterzing/Vipiteno. We were now in the mostly German speaking province of Southern Tyrolia or Alto Adige, as it is called in Italian. After a large session of shopping in a crowded supermarket in Sterzing we experienced a disappointment, when the campsite in the suburb of Gasteig turned out to be closed. We got the advice of going a 30 km further down to Vahrn/Varna, and so we did. We had a tailwind and mind, we went downhill.

On the cozy and well equipped campsite Thomas was our dinner cook, pasta carbonara, with humble assistance by me. There was plenty of room for us, and we enjoyed that a lot.