If you would like to see details about our journey, check out our itinerary and our bike route.
So much for resting.
We woke up to an absolutely beautiful day, with temps in the low 70s and the sun shining. Even though we had just finished seven straight days of riding, we just couldn't waste this perfect day sleeping in our apartment.
We hauled the bikes down the steep steps, walked them out through the quieter but already beginning to bustle shopping streets, threw our legs over the saddles at the cycle freeway tangle just outside the old city center, and wove through crowds of cyclists heading to work and school and wide-open spaces, up a different river, back up into the Dolomiti. Our destination: Merano, a smaller city up another valley, known for having nice restaurants and a couple of castles, including one with large, beautiful gardens.
It was a glorious ride on another dedicated cycle path with an easy gradient for 20 miles of happy climbing. We stopped for coffee once, took our time, enjoyed the lightness of bikes without packs, took in the views of the mountains and orchards and vineyards along the way.
Merano was bigger than we expected, and though smaller than Bolzano, it also had that shopping mall atmosphere. Nevertheless, we found a nice restaurant on a side street, and relaxed at an outside table, enjoying the warm sunshine and good food.
After a little ride around town, we biked up to the castle gardens in the foothills above the city, then cut across to hop back on the EV7 and coast 20 miles back to Bolzano.
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| We were enjoying the day so much that we forgot to take photos. This is the only one I took. I don't even know if it was Merano or Bolzano. |
