Day 6 – July 1, 2025
A pleasant start of the day - first day in July - was the breakfast at the hostel, our table almost crushed from all the food on it.
We checked out and headed for town, Levente´s train leaving around 10 am, so we did some more sight-seeing, appreciating both modern and old stuff.
The city library
Drink!
Just another office building
At the station, I accompanied Levente to the indicated track, through the public address system, there waa an announcement that the train would be leaving from the track next to it. We soon saw the reason - a special train just pulled in, the Venice Simplon Orient Express, this one running from Paris to Venice. Well, ladies and gentleman, the cheapest ticket for such a trip costs €4,000, but can go up to €15,000, if you prefer a suite for the trip. This might be the reason the conductor smiled at my otherwise completely serious question whether they would take me with my bike over to Italy and joked that I was not wearing my tuxedo. An older couple also thought they might catch a ride, them showing their "Klimaticket" (a yearly pass valid for all trains in Austria - well, apparently except the Venice Simplon Orient Express) - they were quiet disappointed (and so was I).
Not really for bikers
Elegant
Sorry, the Klimaticket is not valid here
Levente boarded his "boring", regular RailJet to Vienna and we said our good-byes. It was a lot of fun having ridden with him - hopefully we will continue our trip together.
Bon voyage, Levente!
My first course of action alone was to find a bike shop - my pedal was cracking and soon found a shop. A very confident mechanic told me he would be able to throw up the new pedals that I had just purchased by the time I paid for it. Wrong. He was able to replace one pedal, but the other one would not bulge. I recalled that half a year ago, in Georgia, when trying to box my bike, the guy at the bike shop spent an hour trying to remove that other pedal, but it was stuck, so he removed the crank arm instead. The mechanic was scratching his head and told me to come back in a couple of hours. What?! No way, I am on a bike tour - so I left with just half the job done.
The previous year I headed west from Innsbruck (oh, there was that grueling pass called Kühtai that came), this time I decided on heading south to South Tyrol (Alto Adige) in Italy, over the Brenner Pass (now that the Venice Simplon Orient Express failed to take me). At the bike shop, the mechanic explained I would need to take a pedestrian overpass I managed to find it. Here I found a biker from Venezuela, who warned me there would be a lot of traffic on the other side.
Hmmm, I shoved my bike up the ramp, then down on the other side and met a couple walking. They told me if my life was just a bit dear to me, I would not continue that route - but turn around - yes, shove my bike back up the overpass - and take another way. A very bad start - I was cursing a bit at the Innsbruck municipality for the lack of clear signs.
The couple did warn me this second route would be steep - I usually try to ride even steep inclines, this one was impossible to conquer. So there I was, heaving, dragging, shoving, tugging my bike up this steep, steep path - memories of a place in France next to a damn became vivid from the previous year. Finally, the path levelled out and I was at a lookout above Innsbruck, it looking like a LEGO model tucked at the foot of the huge mountains.
Innsbruck from above - how small the town looks...
Innsbruck has been host of winter Olympics not less than four times (1928, 1948, 1964, 1976) and ski jump is an important event - right above the city is the Bergisel Ski Jump - which you can see from pretty much everywhere from the city. Now I was just below it and the road took me past it.
Bergisel Ski Jump
Finally - or so I thought - I was now on the correct path, there was a bike path up to Brenner Pass, with bike road signs indicating the way ahead. As faith would have it, a (somewhat crazy-looking) biker came from the opposite direction, smiled and asked if I was heading up to Brenner. Yes, I answered. In that case, he recommended, I should find the bike road on the other side of the road, it was a lot more quiet and scenic.
The issue was that there was a freeway (Autobahn) separating the road. He told me not to worry, I should just cross the next bridge (leading to the freeway) and would find the path there. Why do I listen to everyone?? So I started onto the bridge, with a car behind me ferociously honking and swearing at me. There was quite some road works going on and from the distance, a worker frantically waving that I should turn around. Hmmm, there must be a bike path somewhere.
The car and the worker were correct - the road I was on was really leading to the freeway. I saw some more workers on the other side, but to reach them, I would need to haul my bike above a ramp. A number of car drivers indicated the internationally understood notion of tapping their foreheads - but then I finally managed to cross the road. There was indeed a path, but this was closed due to the construction. Getting to the workers, they had no idea where the bike path would be, but told me I should cross the valley over the Autobahn, as it was anyhow closed to road works. The worker, who initially protested, was whistling and hissing at me - I doubt we would have been best friends.
The worse is over - so I thought. Wrong. Now I had to find a road veering away from the freeway, but all I saw was very steep hillside. There I discovered a very faint foot path - well, it must lead somewhere. Even without a bike, it posed a challenge - and now I was struggling uphill on a steep, uneven surface. After each step, I took a half-minute brake, trying to catch my breath.
Finally, I reached a path in the forest and looked down on a huge traffic jam (due to the bridge construction), now pretty sure I was on the right path.
Traffic jam below me
This humble forest path made me very, very happy
Here I met a lady with a dog - the canine did not conceal it really, really hated me - she confirmed me I was now back to civilization. And yes, I got to a small village. My water was running out, so I knocked on the door of a large farm house. Soon, someone yelled at me from a barn, what the heck I wanted. He was the farmer, not really enforcing the reputation of Austria as a friendly country, but at least he filled my bottle - even asking where I was from.
Now I had to back-track - and that uphill - for a while; and at last I reached the correct road. It was so steep that two young girls had trouble starting their mopeds uphill, only on the third time did they manage. Oh boy. Anyhow, slowly (but unsurely) I made progress, heading towards Brenner. The guy who was "responsible" for my detour was correct, it was really scenic.
I took a rest on a scenic park-bench under the shade of a tree - next to a corn field. In the background, snow-capped peaks were to be seen. Amazing.
Corn field, flanked by snow-capped peaks
Soon a biker from Germany joined me, we chatted and shared experiences for a while. He told me how his locked bike with a tracker was stolen from the garage of a hotel - a warning to me, as I tend to be quite lax when leaving my bike, hoping it would find another "owner". This is a discussion I have had with Levente, he is a lot more mindful of guarding the bike.
Do I really need to haul all this junk??
The road was a bit of a roller-coaster, I was often looking deep down at the the cars creeping up the Brenner pass and at other times, I found myself to be below it. Traffic was light, as far as I could see, it was mainly just locals. I was in authentic Austria.
Authentic Austria - 1
Authentic Austria - 2
You might now that that a railway tunnel below Brenner is ongoing, planned to be ready in 203x, planned to be 55-kilometer long. I rode past the "trailhead".
The one end of the tunnel
I was quiet beat by the time I made it to the top - and was not pleased with what I had seen there. There as a huge outlet mall, the architects did their best to ignore the otherwise beautiful nature. There were many decaying restaurants and hotels - most of them closed, with broken glass, dusty exteriors. Weird. The weather did not help either - it was nice and sunny the entre day, but it turned quite grey by the time I got to the top.
Many years ago, probably in 2011, I was living in Munich and with Anne, my girlfriend back then, we took our car to the pass and had ridden all the way to Verona. So this waa a repeat of sorts - I started rolling downhill.
As I had expressed a couple of times, I am not a big fan of bike routes - even though there were not many cars on the main road, this time I went for the bike path. This was following the former railway tracks - it was fun for a while, rolling downhill, but I swore at myself when I noticed the path took a huge detour around a mountainside. Somehow I managed to leave the path and after a while, got back to the main road (then back to the bike path, taking a couple of kilometers of a short cut). I reached Sterzing, a medieval town dating back to the XIIth century.
Zwölferturm in Sterzing
Downtown Sterzing
It was not even 8 pm yet and the road was running downhill, so I figured I could push for another hour or so. However, all hell broke loose, a thunder came and I bathed it out under the medieval arches. I waited for it to die down and started looking for accommodation. Prices were soaring high above the "comfy" level (at least €130 for a night), so I asked some locals, they guided me to a place where I found a room for "just" €80. Well, it is summer and after a period of inflation. I better get used for paying that much - or eve more - in the western part of Europe.
The place was decent, I took a shower and fell asleep.
Here is the map of the day - Day 6 - July 1, 2025 - about 70 kilometers.