Via claudia augusta - Page 3

Landeck - Nauders (53 km)

In beautiful weather, the trail led only slightly uphill along the Inn River, with mighty mountains to the left and right. In Pfunds we strengthened ourselves again properly on the riverbank before it goes up. After that, I once again lost sight of the bike path, only looked at the signs. Therefore, we landed at Altfinstermünz in the Finstermünzschlucht, up to here also very nice. Only the rise afterwards was so steep that we had to partly even from the wheel. Degrading 😜. Shortly thereafter, we landed briefly in Switzerland and it went long the road downhill to Martina. There begins the climb to Nauders, to the Norbertshöhe at 1405 m altitude.

Once again fill up with liquid, then we tackle the serpentines. It was warm again in the meantime and we sweated ourselves quite decently up the mountain. Also was neat cyclist traffic on the popular mountain, but our ambition did not go so far that we had to keep up with e-bikers or younger bike enthusiasts. Once at the top, we basked in the wonderful view. Then we headed down to the first beer garden in town. It was fresh up here, so we didn't last long. We walked through the beautiful town, then took the accommodation in seizure and treated us in the evening a pizza at the bar table and few Beers on the balcony of the accommodation 🙂.

In Nauders also starts and ends a wonderful cycling marathon, the Dreiländer-Giro. On 168 km there are 3300 meters of altitude to overcome over some alpine passes: Stilfser Joch, Ofenpass, Umbrailpass, Norbertshöhe. Especially the Stifser Joch is a mecca for cyclists. I've ridden it twice, but it's been 20 years, that would be too violent for me at the moment 😥.

Nauders - Schlanders (56 km)

The day started in the rain. From Nauders it goes about 5 km up to the Italian border. Lake Reschen at 1500 m was still in the rain haze. On asphalted roads we drive along the shore of the Reschensee, with a fantastic view of the water and the mountains. One more photo at the church spire of the sunken village of Alt-Graun rising out of the lake, then we had the first Italian Capucchino, in the rain. But it clears shortly after and a long descent along the Reschensee's, later the Haidersee's, began.

Allegedly, in St. Valentin the bike path was closed, there was a detour, but we got through and the rest of the way ran along the Adige River through small picturesque places, woods and meadows. In one of these places we sat down again to a Capucchino in the sun. The Etsch raced in the seemingly too narrow riverbed always wider becoming to valley. Arrived in Schlanders, we drove first into the place, look around and visit beer garden. Because later we did not come again here, since our accommodation is outside in the district Kortsch. Steeply uphill it went the last kilometers, arrived at the top, greeted us us the friendly elderly owner.

We could not have dinner here, the two restaurants in town always alternated. So we ended up a few meters away in a too posh restaurant, the beer to the evening we drank therefore rather in the quiet beer garden of the accommodation.