Friday

We left central Italy and the regions of Tuscany, Umbria and Marche and took 100 miles of autopista north (for a mere 12€) to the village of Brentino, which is by the Aldige river, in the next valley east from Lake Garda. The temperature stayed a constant 24c throughout our drive which must have contributed to the fact that Harry returned a remarkable 30mpg! The average for the 6,000 miles of our trip so far has been 25mpg.

We learnt of an excellent cycle path which runs the 60 miles between Verona and Trento and on our drive up we kept glimpsing it, so after lunch I dived into the garage and assembled our trusty steeds for a ride in the afternoon sunshine, obviously not for the whole 60 miles! Just north of Brentino we stopped amongst the vineyards for a photo shoot and looking up we saw, clinging to the rock face, what turned out to be the religious sanctuary of Madonna della Corona, something we knew nothing about, but apparently it was originally built in 1522. I will leave the legend of it to those who wish to delve further, but what I found more interesting is the fact that to take the proper recognised pilgrimage route involves climbing the 1,540 steps from Brentino! If only we weren’t moving on tomorrow that is just the kind of challenge I love! Apparently it takes 2 hours to go up and 1 hour to come down……unless you jump.

We just knocked off 10 miles on the bikes on the cycleway which proved to be as excellent as legend would have it, following the canal and weaving between vineyards. On our way back we were into a headwind and being on ‘turbo’ caught up a group of about 12 other cyclists, but not for long, oh the joy and lack of sweat at cruising off into the distance.

Note Madonna Della Corona high up the rock face!

We are definitely more at home up here in the north, the mountains are maybe just something that make us feel more comfortable, but the air seems cleaner and the lack of those pesky insects certainly helps. As we sit in the van in the shade in the valley, we look out through the open door across vineyards to the sun on the mountain opposite, Italy, you are scoring some brownie points!

Saturday

After a night of sleep interrupted every half hour by the nearby church bell, we became aware of quite a bit of comings and goings outside the van. After making her ladyship her usual 8am cuppa, the day was already heating up, so I donned my ‘cool gear’ of sports shirt, shorts and off road trainers, and went outside to investigate further. The road just beyond our van had been barriered off and cars were filling up the remaining spaces of the aire. After some craic with a couple of rather athletic looking people, it transpired that this was the day of the annual Trail Dell’Orsa, a 50k mountain ultra marathon organised by the Verona Trail Running Club. So as I wandered around taking photographs of the setting up, I felt a certain sense of pride being in the appropriate attire, and catching the glances of my would be competitors. I could read their thoughts, “Who is this new tall skinny man, we don’t know him, he could be dangerous”. The race wasn’t due to start for 3 hours, so it was either sit it out (and get blocked in) or head where we originally intended, yet again we plumped for the latter and I felt a bit sheepish driving off, but no doubt my competitors were relieved! Ha ha.

We headed north (again) via Trento to an aire in the town of Pergine, it turned out just to be a mixed parking car park where, being a Saturday morning with a fiesta and wedding taking place, there was definitely ‘no room at the inn’. We continued for another 15 miles east along the Valsugana Valley to the town of Borgo. Now this was an official aire with all the trimmings for 10€, but as we approached we started to get a bad feeling about it. The road had one side cordoned off which just happened to be the side the entrance was on! Rachel fortunately spied a camper in there so we drove in ever decreasing circles until we eventually found a way in through the ‘out’ road. Everything turned out perfectly as the ticket machine for the aire was also cordoned off so we ended up with all services free yet again!

Our 10 euro free aire

In the hot afternoon sun I went for a spin out on the bike, not to do our planned Trento to Bassano del Grappa route, which goes right past the aire, but to visit the castle overlooking the town. When the road ran out I had to follow the hiking route which got progressively worse! By the time I caught sight of a fellow mountain biker stood with his bike a hundred metres ahead, I was indeed struggling. The remaining few hundred metres of the climb became a combination of ride and push, mainly ride thankfully. I caught the 2 guys up at the castle where, to my dismay, it was barriered off as unsafe. I must hasten to add that these guys were proper riders, no engine to help them up! After some banter with my fellow mountain bike chums, we rode together further up for a while until eventually they continued to do some more serious stuff and pointed me down the nursery slopes back home.

A rather hot and sweaty old e-mountain biker

My two fellow 'proper' mountain bikers