Day 1. The High Valley: Brenner to Bozen

My train left at 11:12 for the top of the pass. That meant leaving at 10:30 from the apartment, giving me time to make it down to the map store, buy a map of Südtirol, then go to the station and get my ticket. Maybe even get a first aid kit at the station pharmacy. I hoped I had everything I need for departure, but if I didn’t, I could probably buy it on the way. Italy isn’t the moon. In the map store I was lucky, the first pastel paper packet I picked up had my start and finish points: on the top edge Brenner, in the bottom right hand corner, Venezia.
At the train station, I got my ticket to the Brenner pass. Three euros without a bicycle. I headed to the counter to get the bicycle pass and buy a return ticket. The girl at the ticket counter eyed me a bit incredulously when I ask for a return ticket from Venice short on the heels of asking for a bicycle ticket. One eyebrow raised, she pecked at her computer and told me it would be better to buy one there. Maybe it was best to travel opened ended anyway, I thought. Back upstairs I tracked down a first aid kit, stowed it in my pack with my few t-shirts and a pair of jeans, and went to unchain my bicycle. Wheeling it toward the platform, I noticed an all to familiar sluggishness. Looking down, I saw an inauspicious beginning to a 300 km journey. I had to pinch the front tire to assure myself. Sure enough, a flat at the train station.
In the train, I examined my old Peugeot. I probably should have given him a more thorough combing over prior to this point, but I was hoping for adventure. For the most part everything looked up to snuff. The wheels were a bit rusty, and the saddle old and hard, the shifters on the down tube, but there were no functional problems, flat tire aside. I greased the chain recently, I had a pump and my tools in my pack, and I could essentially rebuild the bike if I had too. But I was hoping the 12 speeds tacked on to a formerly flashy white, red & orange striped frame would hold out all the way to the Adriatic. I rummaged in my tool kit, looking for the tire repair kit. I couldn’t find it, and decided I would buy one, along with a spare tube, in the tiny hamlet of Brenner, straddling the Italian/Austrian border and the main comb of the Alps.
Getting out, I noticed right away the Italian influence, unfortunately not the renaissance sort. The train station wasn’t up to Austrian standards, mildly grungy, the buildings hunched over the platforms all an odd yellow brown brick. Shouldering my pack and my bike, I headed into town. The folks at a fruit stand sent me to a clothing store. He sent me to a bicycle clothing store. He shook his head. Outta luck. I barely caught the train to the Stertzing, thanks to a helpful conductor with heavily Italian accented German. I pay 4 euros from the 4.10 I happened to have in my pocket. Should carry more cash, I guess. I feel bad that I will miss out on those first 10 kilometers, feel like I am betraying the spirit of my journey, but it was that or walk it.
The train had ads on the walls encouraging people to preserve food from their gardens for the sake of sustainability. I decided I like South Tyrol.
In Stertzing I picked up new tubes, repaired the old one, decided cycling gloves might be a good idea, and bought food for the road. Finally ready to head out. On the edge of town, I heard the air hissing out of my tire again. Stopping, I watch another cyclist go by, and this time found Innsbruck’s parting shards of glass. So, up to now, 2 kilometers down, and 2 flat tires. The stats aren’t with me at this point. Doubts about the practicality of my journey started to swim at the edges of my mind, but pedaling alongside the Italian motorists quickly focused my mind on the present. To my delight, after a mile or so, I saw a sign pointing to a bicycle path. What a pleasant surprise! Peeling away from traffic, following the river and the dark pines, I started to gain my confidence back.
As I crossed a bridge, a large track-suited man on a small mountain bike called out to me. “Not that way!” he rumbles, “You have to follow the signs!” I look around, and sure enough, a small brown sign with a bicycle points me to an overpass. I catch up with the man, and thank him. “Where you headed?” he asks.
“Venice, eventually,” I reply. He likes that, laughing just enough to not steal his energy.
“And today?”
“Bozen”
“And from there to Trento and the Valsugana. That is a nice route. I am only going to Franzenfest,” he replied, knowingly. “This part is pretty up and down though, it isn’t as easy as the next few days.”
We chatted a bit, about my bike, his, how far the path goes, (at least to Trento he is sure) and then part ways. I was a bit faster on the hills, having the bike more inclined to the asphalt path. I waved goodbye as I pulled away, and he wished me luck. I was fully encouraged.
The hours slipped by, my seat grews more and more uncomfortable, and it seemed my pack got heavier with every kilometer. But I am free. I rode through forests of pines, next to the river, usually lower in the valley than the great freeway that winds up this pass. I didn’t have too much time to think at length, mostly being busied with the minutiae of riding. Watch out for that cone, don’t hit the gravel patch, I wonder what that mountain is called, how far to the next town? The few patches of snow grew fewer, the grass greened up.
I was almost the only person on the bicycle path until most of the signs said “Brixen”. Just before town, I had to negotiate a section of gravel and earth path, and the mountain bikers gave me nods, surely thinking I am nuts with my skinny tires and red handlebars. When I come out of the woods, I found spring.
Apple orchards and free stone terrace walls stretched to the slopes of the opposite mountains. A woman with a branch of blooming magnolias called after an old homespun vested farmer, they both nodded hello as I whirred by. The bike path took me straight into an orchard, the small trimmed trees only a few feet form my tires, not much taller than me on the bike. Tiny crystal clear streams overhung by thick daisy strewn sod skipped towards town. In Brixen, the population was out walking, riding bikes, chatting. I heard mostly German, but there was Italian interlaced as well. It was reassuring to see so many people again, for some reason the high valley induced a hurry, which melted away in this spring time crowd.
Just outside of town, I paused at a little bicycle rest area. After three hours of riding, hunger, thirst, sweat, and exhaustion need to be eased. I felt good. I was actually putting my crazy idea into action. The route that I first typed in as a fancy a week earlier to Google maps is now unrolling before my eyes. I am riding my bike to Venice. Eating my energy bars, fruit, and cheese, it struck me how often I fail to recognize the simple act of starting. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. True, Confucious, but Newton was also right when he said that a body at rest tends to stay at rest. It takes a lot of impulse to make that one step. I made it, and now I can’t be stopped. What a world we live in.
An older man sitting across from me said something, startled me out of my thoughts. I didn’t understand. Apologetically, I tell him I can’t speak Italian. He turned to his wife, said something to her, and she began to speak to me in German. I told her my plans, and she was impressed, but warns me that I won’t be able to get to Bozen on this bike path. I will have to bike on the street for a bit. I thanked her. After wishing me luck, she and her husband started back to Brixen on foot, and I mounted up for another couple hours pedaling down to Bozen.
In just a few minutes, I came around a corner to see an amazing castle-like building perched on top of a cliff comes into view. The towers of what I learn is a monastery and the town mirror each other, one high and one low. In the middle of town, I get my biggest surprise. This is the village of Klausen. I knew it was on the way, shortly after Brixen, but I didn’t know it had a castle. After snapping a few pictures, however, the orange tinge in the afternoon sun was enough to speed me on my way. I didn’t want to get caught in the dark, especially because I hadn’t worked out a place to stay in Bozen for the night yet.
Since the bike route was built mostly on an old railroad bed, and since the valley is getting narrower and narrower, I started to go through tunnels. It is cold inside, once I was hit in the face by dripping water and nearly startled into a crash, but I hung on. I had to stop and eat some more of my energy bars, and I feel the hours wearing me down. Then, at the end of one of the tunnels, there is suddenly a delightful spray of graffiti, much more artistic than the typical hiphop names of the various vandals. Blue and white sketches of bicycles, six feet tall, are scattered onto the pillars of an avalanche portico. Such a simple display of affection for bicycles is enough to invigorate me, and in only a few minutes, I see the sign welcoming me to Bozen.
In the town square, golden light is playing off the fountain and the delicate filigree of the gothic church steeple. Everywhere the sandstone buildings seem to glow with spring warmth, and there are even a few potted palms sitting at the corners of the café patios. If only I knew where I was going to sleep.
Luckily that problem was resolved in a matter of minutes. After a check at tourist information, instructions to an internet café, an email check and a phone call, I have affirmation that my attempt at couch surfing will be a success. Both of my emails to Bozen were accepted, Igor and Anna, just 20 years old, invited me stay with them for the night. Happily surprised, Igor told me he will be in the middle of town in half an hour.
The rest of the evening was pleasant, a totally disconnected from the cycling of the day. I wash, change out of my wool knee pants and bike shorts, shower, cook a pizza and chat with these total strangers who offered me a bed for nothing more than asking for it. They have rough South Tyrolean accents, vowels mashed and bent, consonants slipping and scraping. This is a language of avalanches and tumbles, of hard winters and a life scraped out of scant means. They can also speak Italian, and cook me a delicious pizza. I help wash up, offer to do anything I can, go shopping the next morning, and they refuse it all. They are happy just to get to know me, they insist. I tell them about Idaho, about going to school, about Innsbruck, about my journey. They tell me about South Tyrol (unemployment of 1.2% and the biggest political strife is over towns having Italian names as well as German ones on the signs). They are students, hoping to move to Vienna next year, but planning to come back to Italy to live. Igor, born in Poland, wants to write. Anna is studying agricultural science and wants to farm. The world moves in mysterious ways.
Falling asleep on their generosity, I am buoyed up with the munificence of the Lord and have more faith in humanity than I have had in months.