If you would like to see details about our journey, check out our itinerary and our bike route.
If you ever get a chance to coast down the AHR from Cadipietra to Brunico, just do it. And then turn right in Brunico and head on up the EV7 to Chienes. Along the way, you will see a handful of ski resorts up on the sides of the mountains, and a lot of chalets and farms lined up along steep switchbacks on both sides of the valley.
We had the most perfect weather: sunshine, slight breeze, zero clouds, 70 degrees. The trail was filled with people walking and biking. We passed a couple groups of folks in traditional Tyrolean dress, striding purposefully down the path.
At noon, we stopped at a picnic table in a park near our turnoff in Brunico, and snacked from our food bag. In the early afternoon, we arrived at our hotel in Chienes, and stretched out on the bed with our feet up, the doors to our balcony open to the gentle rushing from the river a few hundred feet away.
Chienes is a teeny ski village, with a few hotels, two cafes that are not open for Sunday dinner (including the cafe in our hotel), and one gasthaus that is open for Sunday dinner. You guessed it: we were there on a Sunday. We had made reservations at the gasthaus a couple weeks earlier, because we know it can be hard to find food on Sunday in a small village.
When it was time to eat, we walked to the other end of the village, uphill through quiet streets lined with small hotels and homes, to the Hotel & Südtiroler Gasthaus Der Gassenwirt. The hotel was located on a site that had been a guesthouse since the beginning of the 17th century. The current family had bought it in 2016. The daughter, Johanna, was our server. She spoke excellent English, was in her second year at university in Innsbruck, majoring in hospitality and finance, and was home for the summer to work. Johanna was very sweet, and spent a lot of time talking to us (she said it was okay because it was a calm night). Ken and I each ordered one of the hotel's specialties, a plate with three types of dumplings, venison ragù, and cabbage salad. Our desserts were karamelisierte schmatren (kind of like a scrambled apple pancake with caramel sauce) and mascarpone ice cream with fruit. Johanna’s older brother is the chef. The food was outstanding.
We walked home in the dark, alongside the cascading river. Life could be better, I suppose. But this was pretty darn nice.
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| From Cadipietra, we coasted down to Brunico and then turned right, skirting around a mountain range. |
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| Those are the real Dolomiti in the background. Stunning. |
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| Finally, after days of rain and clouds, we had views of the Dolomiti peaks. |
