Day 9: Merano to Innsbruck

Day 10 · Innsbruck

I woke up to sunshine in Merano, though that doesn’t mean much since that’s such a warm little valley oasis! I checked the weather and the webcam at Timmelsjosh and it looked like I would probably only hit drizzle and fog, so I ate breakfast, grabbed a sandwich from a bakery a few doors from the hotel, and headed out (a little later than I would have usually, in case there was ice up top).

Since I had booked a nice, wonderful hotel inside the traffic calmed area of the city, I had to park the bike in the public garage about 2 blocks away. It was really not a bad walk, and I could have ridden the bike back to the hotel to pack it up. But it was a kind of crisp morning, so I just hauled it all over there. After the walk, the stairs, and the stairs again to the parking office to hand over my hotel voucher – I was starting off sweaty. I also knew that in 30 minutes I would be headed up a mountain with an anticipated high of 6ºc (42ºF), so I geared up for cold. By the time I got to my waterproof gloves, I was dripping in the parking garage, and I barely got my sweaty palms into the fleece lining.

Naturally, after all that, the parking voucher didn’t work at the gate so I had to wait there and ring the call button for the guy to let me out.

Anyway, all that heat behind me, I hit the road and it took another 20 minutes to get going fast enough out of town for the wind to cool me down.

I headed up the mountain with mostly clear skies, and a blissfully dropping temperature. Mindful of my sweaty base layers, I turned on the heated jacket and heated grips a little early to keep from cooling down too much. This bike also has a heated seat, which was kinda of a fun surprise to use – never had one of those before.Toasty buns.

This road wasn’t really as epic as others I’ve been on lately (lol) so the big news today was the fog. As I got to the summit, I was IN the clouds, and visibility was pretty low.

After paying the toll for the road, I stopped to head into the vintage motorcycle museum at the top of the road. It alleges to be the highest altitude motorcycle museum in the world, which…maybe. I have no way of fact checking that. I chatted with a Brit out front (he thought I was from France initially because my bike has French plates) and apparently the old museum burned down and this one was pretty new. He had been before and didn’t seem impressed. After going through, I suspect it’s because there were very few British bikes on display – only 3 Triumphs in the whole place. He must be salty.

There were some very weird bikes in here, a lot that I did not recognize, and also some bikes that I’ve seen in museums/on the road/at bike shows before. Like at the botanical garden, I took perhaps too many photos. Sorry not sorry.

The fog sort of lifted while I was in the museum, and the decent was clearer, but also drizzly, and (sorry to brag, San Diego friends) chilly. Fortunately for me, I have taken years to lock in my preferred gear situation, and I was dry and largely cozy through the weather. GoreTex + heated jacket + waterproof gloves and boots and the lesson I remembered on the way up (if you lift the visor in the damp cold, you will lose the careful temperature/humidity balance inside the shield and you won’t get it back – both the sunglasses and the shield WILL fog up if you try) and I was nice and comfy as I made my way down the descent.

After the pass, I quickly found myself in Austria and winding through relaxed valley towns and gradually into the city of Innsbruck. Apparently you need a toll pass to use the autobahn here, so I stuck to the frontage road through farmland for today and bought myself a day pass for tomorrow when I hope to knock out some miles before getting up into the next mountain (it’s a long day).

I ended up getting a killer last minute price on a totally acceptable room about a 10 minute walk (downhill) to the city center (uphill back lol). There’s even parking for the bike here, though after I got it in there I was like “you’re gonna help me push this out in the morning right?” to the parking attendant. For cars, they take folks keys and shuffle the cars around all day, but the bike will get to stay where it is until I need them to push it backward uphill to get it out of there. There’s also some mysterious cello music coming in through the walls – truly I have entered Austria, where the cheap guest house clients bring their cellos to get in some practice.

After a little break, I headed out to walk around the city of Innsbruck, a place I know zero about and could probably spend 2-3 days exploring. There’s a draw called the Golden Roof, which I took a picture of without realizing and looked up later to discover it was done in 1500 to celebrate an emperor’s wedding. There’s also lovely old European architecture and cobbled streets and lots of tourist stuff with the real city just beyond the edges of the historic center. It’s really a lovely city and parts of it remind me of Prague – I’ll have to come back here to learn more about it someday.

After my exploring, I headed back toward my hotel for dinner as I figured the tourist center would not be the quality of food I wanted. I found myself a small ramen shop with some decent ramen, and then hoofed it back up the hill to call it an early night. I’m tired – apparently all my walking yesterday and then riding a bunch today, and then walking more this evening has worn me out!