#10: Back to Salzburg

We didn't have time to bike the Alpe-Adria route back to Salzburg. So we had to figure out a way to get the bikes and our luggage and ourselves back to the Salzburg airport.

Grado is too small to have a train station. Using public transportation in Italy, we would have had to piece together an awkward, time-consuming combination of bus and train rides for the return.

So Markus did some sleuthing on German online cycling sites, and found a guy from Salzburg who runs a shuttle with a bike trailer between Grado and Salzburg a couple times a week.

The trailer only holds 8 bikes--so you have to reserve a spot in advance. In the off-season, that wasn't an issue.

Early Saturday morning, we met the shuttle driver at a small gas station in Grado. Four other cyclists showed up as well. We loaded our bikes on the trailer and headed back. One couple got dropped off halfway to Salzburg, and Markus snapped this pic...

When we arrived at the Salzburg airport a few hours later, Markus sighed and said,

"I could get back on my bike and do it all over again!"

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

#9: Along the Adriatic

From Grado, the Adriatic coastline fans out southward in both directions. To the west, you can see the city of Venice. To the east, you can see mountains and the city of Trieste.

There's a great cycling path that follows the coast into Slovenia and into Trieste. Sadly, we didn't have time to do the whole thing. But one day we cycled along the route for about 20 kilometers. 

We got pretty close to Slovenia, because my cell phone dinged and I got a spam message saying "Welcome to Slovenia!", with an offer to sign up for a data plan.

Barbana and the Blessed Virgin

One cloudy morning, we decided to explore Barbana, a small island with a Franciscan monastery and a shrine to the Virgin Mary. It's a sanctuary which dates back to the year 582 and a popular pilgrimage destination in high season. Each July, the Perdon de Barbana is held to celebrate the end of the black plague in Grado in 1237.

We hopped on a small boat to the island. The boat had an old wooden helm (tiller), on either side of which were taped up old faded postcard images of the Virgin Mary.

 The skipper was brave and sure...

I was impressed with his agility. When mooring the boat, he'd jump nimbly out onto bow, stepping gingerly in perfect balance as the boat rocked back and forth.

It didn't take long to reach the island...

As we disembarked, we saw a Franciscan friar in a dark brown robe quickly duck into the monastery. The tower bell of the church was tolling...



You couldn't take pictures inside the church. The baptismal font as you enter the church is eye-catching. The font is hoisted on the shoulders of red marble sculpture of Satan, carved by a Franciscan friar. I'd never seen anything like that in a Catholic church before.

The centerpiece of the church is a large, crowned statue of Mary, which dates back to the 15th century.

We were most intrigued by scores of oil paintings that covered the church walls. They weren't masterpieces by Italian artists, but primitive folk paintings of local villagers who had died in accidents.

Each painting showed a villager at the moment of their death. Many depicted fishermen in small wooden boats being capsized by a monstrous wave. Others showed a child falling from a tree, or getting run over by an oxcart. A couple were of older women on bicycles getting hit by a car.

In each picture, the Virgin Mary was shown hovering above in a cloud, looking down at the tragedy.

"Why didn't she help out?" I asked Markus.

"Maybe she was just there to help get them to heaven..."

I think he's right. Musing about it later, I remembered the final words of the "Hail, Mary".

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death..."

Amen.

#8: Grado, Italy

Our last day cycling the Alpe-Adria radweg! The segment from Udine to Grado was about 60 km. 

Approaching the Adriatic coast, the roads became very flat. Although we were still miles from the coast, seagulls were flying over farmland, and we could smell the salty sea.

Our luck finally ran out and it began to rain as we biked--the first time on the trip. The closer we got to Grado, the more psyched (and the wetter) we got. When we passed the city sign that read "Grado" we gave some fist pumps in the air.  All we had left was to cross a long bridge over the inlet to reach our final destination.

But just as we got to the bridge, we saw several cyclists coming toward us from the opposite direction. One of them, a Canadian man originally from Italy, waved us down. He told us that the bridge was closed down farther ahead. We had to turn back!

Ugh. So close and yet...

As we pondered how to reach the island, we recognized a couple of female cyclists we had passed a few days before. They took a picture of the detour sign, and then promptly ducked inside a nearby roadside cafe for some caffe und kuchen.

That looked like a great idea to me!

Markus, ever the pragmatist, had a better plan. Since we had no maps for devising an alternate route to the town, he asked the Italian-Canadian man if we could follow him and his wife.

They had bicycled that morning from Venice. Not only was he fluent in Italian, but he had a GPS system on his bike!

So we followed them east along busy two-lane highways, biking away from Grado, and hoping to loop back and enter the town from the east.

Without my hearing aids, the world is beautifully silent when I cycle, even on busy roads with thick traffic. Markus, on the other hand, has to endure all the world's noise pollution. In this case, it was not only the cars zooming by and splashing us with rain, but the constant complaining of the Italian-Canadian man's English-speaking wife. She was not a happy camper biking in the rain. You couldn't blame her, though, as they had heavy touring bikes and were loaded down with way too much luggage.

The detour added 20k to our bike ride that day. But eventually the clouds parted, and we finally  reached our destination--the Adriatic Sea.

We checked into our hotel...almost the same color as our house on Rebel Ridge!

For the next few days, we savored the successful completion of our trip, and the tranquility of the sea.

A giant mussel, and the shadow of two and one-half homo sapien toes...

No beach trip is complete without a washed up jellyfish...

The town of Grado is kind of a mix between middle-class beach resort and old Italian fishing village.

The number of unoccupied beach umbrellas made us glad we were there before the high season!

Refueling our tanks...

On the cycling road, we often had to get by grabbing a roll and a hunk of cheese from Spar, the cheap chain grocery store. But now we could really gorge ourselves on some good Italian food

One favorite was a little eatery that was always full of locals, called "Il Panino".

You had to eat elbow to elbow at the peak lunch hour, but it was worth it!

The owner was very industrious and kind. After we ate there a couple times, he waved and greeted us in Italian from the restaurant entrance, if we happened to walk by. He wasn't pushy and never tried to get us to come in.

Their fried seafood was mouth-watering. My favorite was the fried sardines...they were crisp and crunchy from head to tail. Markus got the assorted fried sea food, which included sardines, calamari, and bass....

Another favorite was Il Contrada, located in a small alley off the historic center of Grado.

Markus loved their spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, and basil. It was simple but exquisite, with incredibly fresh ingredients. My favorite was the seafood carpaccio, very thinly sliced raw mackerel, octopus, European sea bass, and other fish on a bed of fresh arugula.

It was blasphemous to do in Italy, but we didn't drink wine with our meal. Luckily the beer was also mouth-watering.

#7: Udine, Italy

The next morning we were back on our bikes again, biking south through the countryside away from Venzone, toward the city of Udine.

After an hour or so, we stopped at a camp site to rest.

Right next to the fire pit, someone had planted several young bay laurels. Only Italians would make sure they have fresh bay leaves at hand when they have a campfire cookout!

The cycling route to Udine was one sharp turn after another, through village after village. Luckily, it was extremely well-signed, so we arrived there without any major mishaps. Except one.

My bike seat came apart and I had to bungee cord it back together. Sitting on bungee cord for hours isn't exactly cush for the tush. But by that time, I had developed protective barnacles on my butt from cycling.

Udine is the historic capital of the Friuli region of Italy. At one time or another, it's been ruled by Italy, Germany, Austria, the Venice Republic, and possibly even Attila the Hun!

We had never heard of Udine, so we were surprised to discover how beautiful the city was.

Here I am at Piazza Matteotti, a small square.

The principal city square is the Piazza della Libertà, which is surrounded by grand, elaborate structures of Venetian-Gothic and Renaissance architecture, dating to the 15th to 17th century. 

As we strolled around the city center that evening, along with hundreds of local city residents, a thunderstorm suddenly struck, unleashing torrents of rainfall. Everyone quickly ducked under the large covered walkways of the Castello di Udine (Udine Castle).

A bunch of women started dancing...who knows why...Markus just caught the tail end of their dance and the ensuing applause...

String theory

The woman at the front desk of our hotel in Udine was very friendly. Every morning, she greeted us warmly and sprinkled a big cinnamon smiley face on the froth of our cappuccinos. So we took advantage of her affability to help us solve the mystery about hotel showers in Italy that had been dogging us for days/

Why is there a string in the shower?

The string, she said, is there for an "emergency".

So if you're showering and you suddenly need help, you just pull it. In theory, a rescue team arrives pronto.

I say, "in theory," because just to find out what it did, Markus had already pulled the string several times at previous hotels. Nothing happened.

So my theory is that it's just a placebo 911 string, designed to make people feel safer.

Judging by the bathroom decor, it may have been installed shortly after the 1960 release of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho...

#6: Venzone, Italy

The smooth paved cycling road from Tarvisio through the Italian Alps seemed too good to be true. And it was. Because just as we neared the town of Venzone...

Why is it that even the most pedestrian of Italian words, like "detour", sound beautiful enough to be belted out by a portly Italian tenor?

Say "day-vee-ah-zee-OH-nay" a few times. The word rolls off your tongue with emotional resonance and rhythmic flair.

But I deviate....

We didn't know why the cycling route was closed off. Except for the detour sign, there were no follow-up signs indicating how to get to Venzone.

So we used guesswork, intuition, and trial-and-error to patch together an alternate route on rough gravel roads--which were actually old Roman roads. (During the Roman empire, Venzone was  a key market/transit stop on the road to Rome).

When you cycle for hours and hours each day, your mind tends to get stuck in various random thoughts and jingles. After reading the sign, I became afflicted by a grand operatic earworm. For umpteen miles, I could hear nothing but a barrel-chested tenor lamenting: "Why the detour?" in Italian.

Despite my earworm, we eventually found our way to Venzone, a charming old medieval walled village, recently voted "the most beautiful village in Italy."

Venzone has an interesting and inspiring history. In 1976, it was near the epicenter of a powerful earthquake in the Friuli region. Virtually the entire village was completely leveled. Here's what the town's cathedral looked like afterwards:

Faced with this devastation, many would have simply left to start life anew somewhere else. But the villagers of Venzone decided they wouldn't give up their beautiful village so easily. Stone by stone, they began the arduous task of piecing the entire village back together, like a giant, 3D jigsaw puzzle.

A little over a decade later, the cathedral looked like this again:

If you go inside the cathedral, you'll see a very moving wooden sculpture, carved from a gigantic trunk of a single maple tree. The sculpture shows villagers, from tiny toddlers to the old and venerable, circled together in harmony, on the tips of their toes, stretching to reach the stars. It's an emotional testament to the power of the human spirit to persevere.

These pics don't give you the full sense of the depth and richness of the sculpture.

Finding a place to crash... 

Venzone is a tiny town. We didn't see any hotels or pensiones inside the stone walls of the historic old village. So to find a place to stay that night, we stopped at the local tourist office. The sign on the door said that the office was closed from noon to 2 (nothing like a 2-hour lunch break!).

While waiting for it to reopen, we noticed the shutters on the shutters of nearby houses...

By 2:20 pm no one had yet shown up to reopen the office. Markus ducked into the cheese shop next door and asked the woman working there if she knew if the office would reopen. She was very nice, and went briskly walking off to find whoever was supposed to be working there.

When she came back, she told Markus the guy was in a geletaria with his daughter, and would be back to reopen the office after they finished eating their ice cream. About 15 minutes later, a gruff looking man ambled to the tourist office rattling his keys. He looked a bit irritated, as if we had rudely interrupted him. His teenage daughter followed behind him, also looking peeved.

We stepped into the office. It was a complete mess, with leaning towers of books, pamphlets, and papers piled carelessly all over the floor and desk. The man looked at us and mumbled something to the effect of "So what do you want?"

Markus asked him about places to stay in Venzone. He got out a town map, marked an X on about 3 different spots, and handed the map to us. Usually in a tourist office, if they're not busy, they'll call places for you to see if there are any available rooms, to save you the time and trouble of walking/biking all over to check each place. Not this guy. After giving us the map, he ushered us out, and promptly locked up the office again. (So much for the 2-5 pm open hours on the sign. Guess he had urgent business to finish back at the ice cream shop.)

We didn't have time to feel insulted. A strong thunderstorm was brewing, so we quickly hopped on our bikes to find lodging. Just a quarter mile away, we arrived at a private house outside the walls of the historic city, in a new-ish neighborhood. The owner was very nice, though she couldn't speak any English. She showed us a room with a private entrance and its own bathroom, and we took it.

The mummies...

That evening, as we strolled around the historic old village, we noticed a round short stone structure next to the cathedral. Turns out this was the crypt that housed the infamous "mummies" of Venzone. Apparently, many people buried there in the 1600s or so never got around to decaying, as they should have.

Here's a picture from Life magazine, which looks to have been taken in the early 60s. 

Must have been "Take your mummy out for lunch day".

The mummies have been famous for a long time--purportedly Napoleon's soldiers lopped of pieces of them on their way by, as souvenirs. (Personally, I think I'd prefer a t-shirt.)

Modern researchers have speculated as to what has preserved the corpses for centuries. No one knows for sure, but theories range from the limestone floor in the crypt to a rare parasitic fungi.

If you buy a token from a local shop for one euro, you can go down to the crypt and see the mummies. There used to be over 40 of them, but the earthquake of '76 destroyed all but a handful. I guess they didn't get pieced back together like the rest of the town.

#5: Tarvisio, Italy

On the cycling trail, being out in the elements and riding through different towns really makes every day a brand new, spanking day. We were happy to high-tail it out of the miasma of Spittal the next morning. Unfortunately, Markus had caught my head cold.
So after cycling a 10k or so, we made a quick pit stop in Villach. This bright, bustling town on the river Drau would have made a much nicer overnight stop than Spittal.

Markus asked around for a local pharmacy and we quickly found the "Angel Pharmacy" just a few blocks off the cycling trail. It was already busy. (Bakeries and pharmacies always seem to be packed in the morning in Germany and Austria. Can't start your day without pills and pretzel rolls!)

After stocking up on more natural cold remedies, we hopped back on our bikes. It wasn't long before we reached the border...

With the open Austrian-Italian border of the EU, all the customs/checkpoints were deserted. Felt a little eerie riding through it--like the ghostly concrete remnants of a forgotten civilization.

The signage for the Alpe-Adria trail got very dicey around the border. Even when we could find a sign, it wasn't clear which road it was referring to. Our map wasn't detailed enough to show all the small windy country roads.

Here, we're wondering if we're heading for the Italian mountain town of Tarvisio (our destination), or to Melania Trump's homeland.

But one pedal push led to another, and finally we reached the beautiful, pristine town of Tarvisio.

We lucked out finding a great place to stay...


After a delectable Italian pizza and cold beer at L'Atro Gusto, a great local restaurant, and a sound night's sleep at friendly Hotel Edelhof, we were completely recharged. 

The next morning, we were psyched to hit the road again. Right outside of Tarvisio, the route becomes a sleek two-lane paved road accessible only to bicycles. 

In case you don't have your reading glasses on...

A smoothly paved bikes-only road through the Italian Alps. Cycling doesn't get any better than this...