We’re going to bike from the Italian/Austrian/Swiss border to Verona

We’re planning a biking trip to the Dolomite mountains in northeastern Italy. The idea is to bike downhill on a bike path from as high up as we can get all the way to Verona.

We hope.

Finding good information in English has been a challenges. Our route will go through three provinces, and one is South Tyrol, where the first language for most people is German, not Italian. So there are two names for everything, and sometimes they look nothing alike.

Take the bike path. The cousin who told me about it called it the Adige. The Germans call it the Etschradweg, because to them the river is the Etsch, not the Adige. And then there is the Val Venosta/Vinschgau bike path that might be part of what we want. And then the Via Claudia Augusta, which I think is part of Eurovelo and might match our entire route.

Or not.

We’ll figure it out along the way.

Same with the weather in October. How chilly will it be? Are those descents so steep that I’ll want gloves? Will it rain?

Here’s what we do know:

We are renting our touring bikes from Itinerabike in Verona and taking the train to be in Mals/Malles. We’ll be close to a mountain pass leading to Austria and not far from a route to Switzerland.

Will work on the train tracks mean we need a mix of bus and train to get there from Merano/Meran? And a separate bike shuttle? Will the No. 240 bus heading to the pass at San Leonardo in Passiria/St. Leonhard in Passeier take bikes from Merano, so we can do that if we need to wait for the shuttle?

Our first full day of biking will be about 60 miles, all the way to Bolzano/Bozen. The maps we have found show an amazing descent at the start (see the photo at the top) and still going downhill into Merano. Then it seems fairly flat to Bolzano.

We’ve booked a place for two nights there so we can explore a bit. The museum dedicated to Oetzi, the 3,000-year old man found in the ice 30 years ago, is a must. Perhaps that high alpine meadow called Alpi di Siusi/Seiser Alm that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

After this we will be a bit more flexible. All the way to Rovereto? Stop in Trento? And then do we detour to Lake Garda or go to Verona? Is there a good path all the way back? Preferably in keeping with this idea that we are going downhill?

No trains from Lake Garda so somehow we’d need to get back to the Verona train line. And if the weather is bad, we can always use the train as our escape.

We’ll figure it out.

Follow the daily ride reports to see how we do. Here’s Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.