Apples. That's what I'll remember from
this day. More of that later.
Check out was delayed by a long chat
with my neighbour about things related to the apartment building roof
but it didn't take too long to pack up and load up the car. Once
paid I was off down the road. I'd assumed south but the satnav was
trying to take me north over Stelvio. Now that could be fun in an
empty car but this one was loaded up and feeling heavy. I tried to
get it to recalculate a different way and it came up with the Gavia
climb. Hmm. I knew the route up Gavia so decided to head that way.
On the north side of the climb things were as I remembered except
today there were a lot more motorbikes and the top was much more busy
than when I was up there on the bike. I presumed it was just because
it was a weekend day.
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| Click for bigger version |
The route down the other side was new to me
and I'm fairly glad I didn't follow the guys yesterday as it was the
mountain they climbed from Ponte di Legno. Long parts of the road
looked very old. Some sections that were just wide enough for a car
and a motorbike side by side had only a few rocks on the edge to stop
you falling hundreds of metres to your doom. This went on for quite
a while with lots of motorbikes appearing around the corner - usually
in the middle of the road and the odd cyclist wobbling side to side
on the very steep road. At one point the road was literally only one
car wide and a nice man in a German registered Z4M reversed about one
hundred metres back down the hill to somewhere I could pass him.
Soon after the road changed to two full lanes and the average speed
increased considerably after the slow and treacherous previous part
of the descent.
At Ponte di Legno I turned left on to
the Passo del Tonale. It appeared to be just another road heading up
a hill but it soon proved to be a great drivers road. The scenery
was good at the top but this road is not about the view. It's about
a continuously turning road, left, right, left, right... It went on
for a long time and proved to be great fun. Must remember that for
any future Italy driving trips.
Towards the bottom of the Tonale I
noticed one of two trees with things growing on them, then a few more
and a field of them and another field, suddenly they were everywhere!
I'd heard of the apple fields in the Trento region and passed them a
couple of times in the car but this was just an immense amount of
apples. I must have driven for 5 or so miles down the valley and
there were still apples on all sides and on all slopes. After a few
more miles I saw yet more apples and a huge lake and these carried on
for another few miles. I'm used to seeing vineyards in France and in
Italy but this was on a massive scale that I've not seen before.
Amazing.
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| Apples |
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| More apples, up the valley down the valley... |
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| Golden Delicious |
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| These are not vineyards they're apple growing fields! |
An hour or so and with the daily total
up towards 230km I was arriving back at the B+B al Lago. The
thermometer was showing 28c in the shade and yet again I'd proved
that you can get pretty sweaty in that weather when you don't have
aircon. Phew.
Dinner was a Messicana takeaway pizza from Miralago restaurant that I'd eaten at previously. Good to see they have a Pantini picture up by the till. A proud nation.
The landlady was looking a little panicky watching me walk up the
stairs with the pizza and suggested I could eat it in the kitchen.
Despite a table cover and a plastic cover over that AND me doubling
up the pizza box base she still found an excuse to come back and put
another table cloth under the pizza box. Now that's house proud or just a little obsessional for someone that lets random people stop in her (admittedly immaculate) house!
Tomorrow maybe a little cycle... It
hasn't really been a rest day today 4 hours driving in that heat but
it did rest the legs.
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