Day 8: Levigno to Merano

Day 8 · Merano

Had an earlyish breakfast and hit the road out of Levigno around 9, the same time as the other two bikers staying at my hotel (some older gentlemen who only spoke Italian, but helped me turn my bike around).

The first chunk of the ride was the same as up to Stelvio but at Bermio, you turn right and head through town (instead of left and up to Stelvio). After going through town, you start to see the signs for Gavia Pass almost immediately. I feel like Stelvio gets all this glory, and you don’t even realize there’s another pass like…right there.

The ascent from the north side of the pass is very forested and narrow. Like everywhere here, bicyclists dotted the road, and – obviously – motorcycles. This was the least traffic I have yet seen on a pass, and I learned why as I kept going.

The road on both sides of the pass is VERY narrow. Like, two cars cannot pass each other along a lot of the road, and they need to stop at wide points to let one another by. This is true of many of the passes, but Gavia is the narrowest one I’ve been on so far. I don’t think a single bus could even fit on a lot of the road. Even on a motorcycle I had to think about passing oncoming bikes in some parts. There were cars on the road, but really not many and they seemed like they were mostly locals. No sports cars appeared to be daring it.

Here’s the video of the ascent (wifi here isn’t up for the download/upload process to get the video in-line).

As you get out of the forest-line and up to the winding top of the pass, the terrain changes to scrubby trees, to no trees and just that brownish alpine grass. There were some cows up at the top, enjoying the rest of the late-summer offerings. Little rivers flowed with glacial melt along the road. I would guess this glacier won’t be around for many more summers, like quite a few others I’ve come across this trip it seems a lot smaller than I imagine it should be to survive these warm summers.

The descent was HARROWING. The road somehow narrowed, and I truly do not know how some of these dudes were just flying down the road. I didn’t trust that there wasn’t some little Skoda taking up the whole road around the next corner. There were some guardrails, sure, but most of the road was just open to the side of the cliff, sharply curved in the turns, and – again – just super narrow. A real sphincter-clencher of a road.

I really wanted to get a video of the decent in here because it was so intense – but I’ll have to add it in the morning and just let the GoPro do it’s thing on the slow internet. I’ll add the videos to the full album as I’m able. (Though I’m noticing it’s got all the videos out of order on the album – trust the file names, not the order lol.) Edit: here’s a good chunk of the early descent.

After the pass, it was a long, fairly quick run through a valley full of Italian villages. These moved more quickly than the Swiss ones, both by virtue of the road (wider, lovely turns), and also the drivers. I’m noticing that Italian traffic tends to be faster and more aggressive than Swiss traffic.

At one point toward the end of the ride the ol’ Garmin was indicating a bit of a detour into Merano, and since it was a little early to check in I obliged.

I ended up on a really fabulous road, which started and ended by winding through apple orchards, but was a beautiful pine-lined set of twisties between. It seems like this is a bit of a locals favorite, based on the number of sport bikes I saw ripping around up there. There were a few different junctures, so I imagine that’s a popular way to spend a weekend morning for motorcyclists who live around here.

Then I descended all the way into Merano – which I am LOVING so far. This was a favorite winter retreat for the Austrian Empress Elisabeth in the late 1800s, as it’s quite a bit warmer than the surrounding regions. Palm trees dot the city, and there’s a large suite of thermal baths that I’m looking forward to experiencing. There’s also a castle (with garden!) and a picturesque promenade from town to the castle that has carefully cultivated.

I maybe splurged a little on my hotel – and I am not mad about it. There is air conditioning and a tub. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow (though – it’s the alps so who really knows), so I decided to just skip my planned stay in Solden tomorrow and head all the way to Innsbruck on Thursday when the weather looks a little more promising (on Zoom Earth at least). I have good rain gear and I’m not afraid of getting wet, but the forecast for the Timmelsjoch doesn’t look good for the next few days. I hope I don’t have to skip it – there’s a vintage motorcycle museum at the top I’d like to get into – but we’ll see how the weather looks after tomorrow. It said it was supposed to rain up there today, but the webcam looks sunny.

Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing some European gardens, hot springs, and relaxation over the next 36 hours, even if it’s a little drizzly.

For dinner I headed over to a nearby restaurant recommend by the guy who checked me in at the hotel for some local cuisine. He’s a longtime (generations) local here in Merano and he told me a bit of a history lesson about this interesting place. Apparently it was part of Austria until WWI when it was “given” to Italy at the end of the war. At that time, Mussolini wouldn’t allow any of the area residents to speak German, or learn German at all in an attempt to force Italian on the region. Now (as of about 80 years ago) the region enjoys a special designation that allows residents to freely converse with authorities in their native German (though – most don’t as the police/court systems tend to only know Italian). They’re also again able to learn German in the schools. He didn’t say it, but I got the impression that the regional affiliation is more to itself than to either country, with folks seeming to identify closer as Austrian, though legally they are Italian. Interesting stuff.

Time to enjoy that bathtub!