Once again I'm a full time athlete !: Bike packing

So for my very first foray into bike packing I decided to go from Mellame to Bressanone. It was mostly on a bike path and there was always a "get out of jail free" card of a ride in a train if things went belly up either body or weather wise.

The plan was:

Mellame to Levico Terme, stay 1 night

Levico to Salorno..stay 1 night

Salorno to Bressanone stay 2 nights...perhaps do a side trip on the second day

then?? nothing planned at the outset.

Day 1.

At Tezze where I join the bike path

Hotel Cristallo at Levico was good...I had stayed there on my first day in Italy at which time I was brain dead and had to ask for everything to be said twice and finally written down.

Bit disconcerting was that the receptionist remembered me!!!...must have made a lasting impression...hmmm! the breakfast there is, to say the least, sumptuous...just brilliant.

However a bar in the main street had a very very weird idea of what a frappe is!

I took great delight in helping a tourist and saying, on being asked if I spoke English, yes rather well actually!!

Many Levico houses in the old part of town have these arches into their property.....limits the size of car you can have!

Levico street art

There are so many hotels in Levico they are colour and number coded..my hotel was yellow 16!

Day 2:

The ride next day was a bit fraught..part of what I'd planned was not allowed for bikes and so I had to adapt and then I took the bike path on the wrong side of the river in Trento and ended up having to re-trace my course and got tangled up briefly in a VERY main road.....luckily I'd spent so much time working out my course on Google maps/street view that I was able to retrieve the situation fairly rapidly.

The approach to Trento via Civezzano was down a VERY steep hill which I was less than interested in doing on the way back!

This is a carpet!

to explain it better!

Salorno hotel,...apart from the carpet, was nothing special..the room wasn't ready, the receptionist told me nothing and the town had very little to look at...especially since it rained. However, the evening meal was good and actually the cost not very high.

Day 3 and 4:

Bressanone..the hotel was probably just a bit further out of the town than I expected ..a 30 min walk but a nice place although 30 euros for an evening meal was a tad OTT since I can never eat 4 courses. Main gripe...no fridge in the room. My plan of doing a side trip on day 2 got well and truly canned as I was far too tired and essentially I just did short trips around town and bought a train ticket to get back to Trento initially.

Bressanone hotel art!

Only in Italian and English...despite it being such a multilingual town

Sooo many bikes there and not one worth stealing!

Bike pump in the main street

one of many many street statues

Day 5

Train back to Levico via Trento

local train bike rack

couldn't get a pix of the fast train set up..not allowed anywhere near it!

The train trip: no one could tell me where exactly in the line of carriages mine would be...#262 and my bike was to be in place #144. I got to the station, as usual ridiculously early and on finally walking onto the platform saw that the train was to be 15 mins late. then 25,35,55 and finally 70 mins late! The platform got more and more crowded but when another train arrived..going the other way, suddenly I was almost the only person waiting.....me and 2 others. Felt a bit spooky!

So, 70 minutes late this high speed super fast train finally arrived and I was 3 or 4 loooong carriages out of place and so had to run in order to get to THE place where my bike had a reserved place. Haven't run that far for ages! All good though. Had a coffee in the restaurant car and at Trento retrieved the bike and set off to buy a ticket for the local line to Levico terme where I had decided to stop for a 2 day rest.

I had again to run for the train as it was just about to leave...although I did manage to delay it as I sprawled inelegantly into the carriage cutting my leg, bruising my hand and bleeding all over the place! Sono arrivata! I said...I have arrived!...and then told the officials not to worry about my leg...not the first time and wont be the last!!...my Italian has definitely improved!

Day 5 and 6

Hotel Cristallo was again great although the room where I was had what has to be THE worst pillows ever.

I did a ride on the second day towards Pergine Valsugana and later saw a parade of people wearing Imperial period clothes. Apparently Levico was where the Imperial court used to "take the waters" and so has a strong link with the Hapsburg dynasty. It was actually on the Austro Hungarian empire border with Italy before the post WW1 dismantling of that empire and consequently is surrounded by protective forts.

Day 7

The next day I took a final train back to Primolano...slogged up 2 nasty hills, did the washing and vowed to have a few days' rest before doing that again! It was a Sunday, no shops open where I was and there was not much in the fridge or kitchen so I pigged out on what I could find and realised a large shopping trip was required the next day! and that's a story for the next post.

All in all it was fun although a bit too much for a first solo effort. I was happy with what I'd packed although I had to beg a bandaid for my wounded leg from the receptionist at Levico...yet another reason for them to remember me next time! I washed my clothes in the shower each day and they dried overnight. Although severely tempted I managed not to buy stuff as I really didn't want any extra weight on the bike.

The following pix are from along the way: