I’m in love with this bike path along the Adige river in northern Italy. And with the area.
Even before I had finished our first full day of biking, I was already contemplating a return visit.
First, it’s just beautiful. The mountains, the unseasonably warm weather we experience — though this is an area that already boasts of 300 days of sunshine a year (!), however that gets calculated. Apparently the mountains on three (if not four?) sides creates an amazing microclimate … which is also why we are seeing apple orchards for miles on both sides of the path. Farmers grow 11 varieties of apples totaling 5 billion (yes, with a b) apples in South Tyrol. We’ve arrived in the middle of the harvest.
Then there’s that amazing bike path along the Adige/Etsch river. We stick to it from our starting point in Malles/Mals, high up in the Dolomites near the border with Austria, all the way to Bolzano/Bozen 60 miles away. (Towns here have both Italian and German names.) No messing with traffic. Almost all paved, just not through the Stilferjoch National Park. Your bike will be fine.
No need for a navigational device until Bolzano either. We just followed the signs. Look for a brown sign with a bike symbol. Sometimes it will say Merano?Meran, that spa town we stopped in the day before, sometimes not. White paint on the road is the backup.
Though there are always other options, always with names in both languages:
And yes we go almost all downhill, sometimes coasting but mostly pedaling easily, ending the 700+-meter drop into Merano with seven switchbacks. Glad I’m not going uphill! But then that’s what e-bikes are for. And we see plenty of those along the entire route. More than bikes with no electric assist, I’d say.
Here’s the elevation map:
Who else goes uphill? People training for the cross-country ski season. We were caught off-guard when a pack zoomed past us. But I was later able to snap a photo of this one:
And did I say apples? The trees are pruned to be low and and practically two-dimensional, loaded with mostly bright red orbs easy to pick.
Of course there’s more than apples to eat. I spotted a bakery as we went through one village, went in … and was excited to see a Rumkugel, or giant, soft, rum-soaked ball covered in chocolate sprinkles. This was not the norm for German bakeries when I was living there several decades ago, so I’d always be pleasantly surprised when I spotted them and would have to buy one.
The Brit opted for a nut-filled doughy crescent-shaped pastry. I think I made the better choice.
Loved this vending machine for eggs and potatoes along the bike path!
There’s wine here too, though we didn’t stop at a winery. If hiking a wine route is your thing, look around the Castelbello/Kastelbell area. Perhaps it’s bikeable too?
We’re also discovering this idea of bike bars along the trail — food and drink, not necessarily alcoholic. Outdoor seating. Green space too. They make me think of what you might find at the bottom of the ski slopes. This one, called the Radbar (Rad=bike in German), was clear about its beliefs.
How could I forget the river?
So many reasons to stop for photos. It’s a 60-mile day going downhill and yet we’re going to need all day!
After Merano
We finally reach Merano (Meran to the German speakers) after about 60 km, or 36 miles. The wayfinding signs turn red, like the ones we saw in the town the day before, and we watch for those saying Bolzano/Bozen. This is still a predominantly German-speaking area, though we’re told that it’s more evenly divided in Bolzano, perhaps 24 miles away.
The route keeps us out of the center of town, so I’m glad we had our forced break a day earlier.
And now it turns pretty flat — we’ll descend about 60 meters over those 24 miles — and the signs switch back to brown. It’s straight. You can’t get lost here. We see people riding home from work, some peletons of e-bikers on tour. The bigger surprise is all those serious road riders using the path as their training route, overtaking with barely a whistle to alert you. One more reason that signs remind us along the entire route to stick to the right side and ride respectfully. (I struggle with that … I like riding two abreast and chatting.)
The signage changes. I appreciate the kilometer markers, but why don’t the numbers match??
The wind shifts on us too. Now we’re feeling a headwind. Apparently this happens a lot in the afternoon.
We reach the outskirts of Bolzano, which describes itself as a bike city. We turn off our path and onto another one, along the Eisack River, signposted for Bolzano. Then we turn on the navigational help, which gets us from this path through the heart of town and to our AirBnB.
Bolzano’s not kidding about being a city of bikes!
A day off the bike
Now for a day to explore Bolzano. We’re still in bilingual South Tyrol, but Italian is reasserting itself.
Bolzano is a charming town of about 109,000 with people of all ages going around on bikes. People speak German and Italian and, yes, English.
We had to see Oetzi. He’s the 3,000-year-old man found frozen in the ice about 30 years ago. What scientists (and the police) have been able to discover about him is just fascinating. The museum is less than a mile from the train station.
Beyond Oetzi, we considered going to Alpe di Siusi/Seiser Alm but opted for the cable car to Oberbozen/Soprabolzano just a short walk from our AirBnb. We decided not to bring the bikes. Good thing, because tourist information has a different definition of flat than we do!
What about day 3 on the bike? Here’s what happened.
Practical stuff
-If all the names weren’t already confusing, we learn that the upper section of the Adige valley is called the Venosta Valley (Val Venosta/Vinschgau). German speakers can search for Vinschgauer Radweg or Radweg Vinschgau. The bike path also is part of the Via Claudia Augusta cycle route, which stretches around 700 km from Donauwoerth in Germany, over the Alps and down to Altino near Venice or Ostigla, south of Verona, on the Po river.
There’s also mountain biking and road riding with serious climbs in the Malles-Merano area.
-You want to camp? We saw several camping places still open north of Merano.
-We ran out of time to explore any of the vineyards just outside Bolzano. Nor did we have time to explore the bike paths going into the mountains east of Bolzano. Imagine biking downhill on a bike path from the Brenner Pass for nearly 60 miles back to Bolzano!
– If you prefer staying in one place and doing day trips with bike and train, Bolzano could fit the bill. I’ve got suggestions for one-day bike outings here.
-Curious about the touring bikes and panniers we rented? All here.
Ready for what happened after Bolzano?
Exploring by bicycle 
Awesome!!!!!!
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