Day 19 - Miramare to Domzale

I woke at 6 to the sound of single scullers tapping past my window on the flat sea. The water merged with the sky in a steel grey and I lay for some time just staring at the point where the horizon should have been.

After breakfast with my Dad we said goodbye and after getting my things together I set out down the road to Trieste. Passing through the city I came out on the road up the hillside which led to the mountains among which the Slovenian border lay. The climb was not steep but it was very long and very slow. I heated up very quickly and began to sweat more than I expected I would. Either side of the border were long, low gradient climbs with a few short downhills giving a little respite. I saw more leisure cyclists out on the road and it was encouraging to have others around me suffering the climbs and enjoying the downhills.

The morning's progress was slow so I denied myself an early lunch in the large town of Postojna. This was a mistake as there was no cafe or restaurant for many miles the other side. A cruel road sign indicated the way to an eatery which turned out to be closed and the village of Planina afforded me only a small shop where I bought some bananas and sat on the road side feeling sorry for myself. I was soon cheered as the mountains opened out into a plain that would take me all the way to Ljubljana. The afternoon was quick as most of the road was on a slight decline. It was also interesting as several settlements cropped up as I neared the capital, giving me an opportunity to see Slovenians going about their daily business.

I arrived in the north of Ljubljana at around five and received directions to the home town of my host, Igor, in perfect english from several people leaving work. I then commuted out to Domzale and within an hour I was through the door of Igor's home. In the evening we returned to Ljubljana for a performance by the Copenhagen girls' choir before a walk among the buildings of Josef Plecnik to find a place for supper. The heart of Ljubljana was beautiful in the darkness and I was pleased when Igor suggested I come back in the morning to give a talk at his school, as it would give me an excuse to have a snoop around in the light.

Distance covered 82 miles

Day 18 - Treviso to Miramare

After breakfast, Marco took the time to cycle alongside me through to the Via Treviso Mare, to ensure I made my way out of the city in the right direction and in one piece. It was great to start the day riding slowly and chatting idly with Marco. I got on with Marco very well and I was sad to leave him at the side of the road to head east alone.

My original plan had been to stop at Trieste but my Dad surprised me by announcing he had some airmiles to use and that he would come and see me for the evening. The hotel was booked and so my destination changed to Miramare, a few miles north of Trieste and the site of a 19th century seaside castle.

One road, the Strada Statale 14, would take me all the way from Treviso to Miramare, and as I started on it a moderate headwind picked up. Since the road followed the same direction almost all the way, this was not a good sign. As the morning passed though, I felt the benefit of my previous work and was able to maintain a high level of effort and enjoy the resulting good pace into the wind. Further, the sun was already bright by mid morning and the scenery was a welcome distraction. Endless vineyards and freshly verdant meadows stretched out either side of me, with rickety old farm buildings artfully placed among them.

Around noon, the wind died down and I made very good time to the slightly awkward but pretty town of Latrevisa, where I stopped for lunch. Speaking to some locals, it became clear that I had overestimated how far I had come in the morning and I had about 15 miles more than I had expected ahead of me. The frustration brought on by this misjudgement lit a small flame behind my behind and I set another personal best for distance in the hour after lunch. Another good hour followed and I settled just short of Monfalcone to enjoy a drink and some of Flora’s sugared biscotti.

I had hoped that I would get onto the Strada Costiera leading down to Monfalcone in time for my Dad to pass me as his drove down from Venice. I felt that my earlier misjudgement made this unlikely though, so I found myself in a bit of a huff as I climbed the long slope to the top of said road. This slope came with its rewards and I rolled out the last twenty minutes of the day on a long downhill with a great surface, overtaking and being overtaken by several leisure cyclists as I went.

I arrived to meet my Dad at the hotel Miramare and washed away the day’s grime and irritation with a quick swim in the cold sea. It was good to be able to speak in my own tongue again without thought or hesitation and we enjoyed a good catch up over a substantial fish supper before returning to the hotel to bed.

Distance covered 93 miles

Day 17 - Verona to Treviso

After breakfast with Marco I spent an hour on bike maintenance in the cool, wet inner courtyard of his home.


Leaving Verona for Vicenza, my back wheel soon started to feel as if it was slipping from under me. Looking down and seeing the tyre spread out more than it should be, my first thought was that it may have deflated slightly over the long road the day before. I stopped at a garage and used a car tyre pump to reinflate it. All seemed well, so I continued down the road. After a further few miles, the same happened again and ended up on the side of the road removing my rear wheel from the frame, the tyre from the wheel and the inner tube from the tyre. I inspected the whole thing and inflated the inner tube on its own and all seemed well, the tube held the air and there was nothing visibly wrong with the tyre.

Putting it all back together again, I decided that if I had further trouble I would stop at a repair shop for a professional opinion. Further trouble I had and I stopped at a town whose name I forget and found a little bike shop with the requisite professional. He swiftly found the puncture I could not and soon had a new tube fitted. I took the opportunity to switch my rear and front tyres, since the former was nearly bald and the latter still nearly new.

With the bike in order and still plenty of time in the day, I set off much happier and rode hard through to Vicenza, enjoyed a whistle stop tour of its glorious architecture before stopping for a plate of pasta and a large slab of chocolate, donated by Marco’s father that morning. This fuel took me through a great hour after lunch, my best of the trip thereto. I then followed the flat, straight roads through to the outskirts of Treviso. I started to notice a problem with my left cleat and on inspection discovered the forward flange had disappeared. Thinking it prudent to sort this out sooner rather than later, I stopped off at a large bike shop just outside the city.

As I was discussing replacement cleats with the owner, Andrea, my front inner tube exploded with a load hiss behind me. This was surprising, as the bike was standing with no pressure on a flat, carpeted floor. There seemed to be no connection between the string of misfortunes that day so I cautiously put it down to coincidence and after another round of repairs I rolled into the centre to meet another Marco in the Piazza Duomo.
I had wanted Treviso to be ugly. I thought it so unfair that one region of one country should have so many beautiful old cities. The bridges over the fast course of the several rivulets which pass through the centre, the shadowy arcades and the impossibly stylish inhabitants came together to provide a further injustice and to make this my favourite city yet.

Marco’s family were faultlessly kind and I had another enormous Italian supper before Flora bake dozens of sugared biscotti for me to take along with me the next day.

Distance covered 76 miles

Day 16 - Lecco to Verona

Over the weekend, the weather had been miserable. This had made me very happy. I considered that there could not possibly be three days of bad weather in Italy, so surely on Monday the sun would be shining for my trip to Verona.


Contrary to this sound meteorological logic, it rained for almost all of Monday and this put a little dampener on what could have been a beautiful day. In particular, I was aggrieved that the view of the Alps to the north had to remain a figment of my imagination, stuck as I was in a grey box whose sides were never more than half a mile from my eyes.

The road was fair. It undulated occasionally but the surface was good and so progress was fast. I started to feel the benefit of the previous weeks’ work and I noticed that I was able to travel a full mile further per hour. Conversely, the Italian signage contrived to hold me up at every stage. Often, one sign would contradict another placed just a few hundred metres before and I was constantly frustrated by the misleading information. The distance indicators were just silly. At one point I might be 36 kilometres from Bergamo, only to find that, 10 miles further down the road, I was 37 kilometres from the same spot. This was less difficult to deal with as the signs simply have to be ignored.

I stopped for lunch in the old centre of Brescia, the first of many cities which would continue to amaze me as I made my way across northern Italy. I took great pleasure in picking my way along the square-bricked streets between old churches and roman ruins before setting out again to Verona.

The greatest disappointment of the day came as I arrived on the shores of lake Garda. Many people in Milan had told me that I should take my time on the road along its shores, as it was more beautiful even than Como. Sadly, I barely realised I was beside it until the towns picked up the suffix ‘del Garda’ and when I looked to the north all I could see was white noise and a couple of buoys.

On the final approach to Verona I neared the 100 mile mark and quickened my pace as I did. I smiled as the landmark came and went and then cooled my work rate as I closed in on the old city. Meeting Marco at the station, I walked with him through the marbled streets to his family home on the north side of the river and enjoyed supper with him and his family, eating my own weight in thick vegetable soup and chicken and pork. Marco's mother and father were both doctors and they took care to ply me with water and medicaments to ensure I was ready to face the next day.

Distance covered 106 miles

Day 15 - Silvaplana to Lecco

This was a glorious day.

I arrived at the repair shop early, where a generous Swiss realigned my wheel and declined to accept payment. I set out along the flat shore of the frozen lakes and ate up the miles, though a few frankly churlish climbs insisted on reminding me that it would not all be so easy. Soon I came to the high end of the Malojapass, which would take me down more than 1400 metres to Chiavenna. The road wound serpentine down the steep mountainside and I felt like Tiff Needell in the mid 90s as I rounded corner after fast corner and more and more road spread out before me.

I will not forget the image of the broad spread of the valley drawing me back down to earth and the thrill of reaching my top speed of 31.5 mph as I approached the Italian border. The closer I came to this next country the more signs I could see of its innate style. The villages and small towns I passed through provided hundreds of delightful little snapshots and if I had had more time I could have spent all day with the camera in any one of them.

After crossing the border, there was a brief hold up as a helicopter lifted entire pines off the mountainside onto a truck below. This sight was so impressive I was happy to wait with the long line of cars and watch in disbelief as the flimsy aircraft lifted and carefully placed down sixty foot trunks.

Arring in Chiavenna after around two hours, I stopped for coffee and pastry in the company of some relentlessly talkative elderly townspeople and I knew immediately that I would enjoy the next few days in Italy. My trip across the valley floor from Chiavenna to the lake was slowed by a persistent headwind but my mood was so good and the surroundings so distracting I didn't mind at all. Turning towards the lakeside at Colico, I soon found myself on a road that ran all the way along the shore to my planned lunch stop at Varenna.

Lake Como does not need another glittering review of its beauty, suffice to say it was a treat to ride along. There were occasional tunnels in the side of the hills but the Italian drivers were much more accommodating than the Swiss. Some of the tunnels were also lit naturally by gaping holes in the rock and so formed galleries, each gap framing a stunning landscape of the lake and the mountains behind it.

My maps had told me that the road on the east side of the lake eventually turned into a major dual carriageway so, not wishing to end up stranded as in the Mainz to Karlsruhe leg, I crossed the lake by ferry, to Bellagio. I should say that this saved me about a mile in distance but I soon payed for this in a steep climb over the headland at the bottom of which Bellagio lies. The final stretch along the west side of lake Lecco was quick and I arrived in the city of the same name just after five, looking forward to the weekend's rest.

Late in the day I had discovered by text message that my host for the weekend, Oscar, whom I believed to live in Lecco, in fact lived in a town between Lecco and Milan, around 15 miles from my set destination. In the circumstances I had to take a train to his house, fearing that I would almost certainly be lost in the dark if I tried to cycle without planning or maps. I was not altogether comfortable with this but I settled my ethical quandry by determining to set out from exactly the same spot, at Lecco central station, on the Monday morning, thereby maintaining a continuous route and affording myself no advantage in distance.

Distance covered 71 miles

Day 14 - Masein to Silvaplana

I sat at the breakfast table in an empty nervousness, failing to engage with the pleasant conversation of Bettino and Corina. Starting out at 8.30am I sped down the slope to Thusis, my body freezing as the air rushed about it. The road continued to plunge almost to the bottom of the valley and I felt bullied as I looked up at the first climb which would take me to Tiefencastel.


In fact I enjoyed this first climb. It was hard and my heart awoke in my chest, thumping warming blood down through my legs and into my lungs to snatch at the cold morning air. I began to sweat early and it cleansed me of the crippling nerves I had had all morning. After about half an hour of climbing the road flattened out and made its way along the mountainside, over waterfalls and through tunnels, to the short downhill to Tiefencastel. The tunnels are a horror show for cyclists. Once inside, you have a choice between the roadway which is dark between dull sodium lights or a narrow and cluttered pavement. When a car, van or lorry enters the tunnel with you, no matter what the distance or direction, it makes a tremendous noise which puts you permanently on edge until the exit into daylight, which may not be for more than two miles.

At Tiefencastel, I saw the first sign to the Julierpass and it sent a rush of conflicting emotion right through my body. Excitement won over trepidation and I jumped on the bike to take on the first climb. At the bottom of the slope another sign declared the pass open. Any lingering doubts faded and I allowed myself a big grin as the road began to rise. This second climb of the day was hard. I took me up a steep mountain side and soon I was well above a church steeple I had looked up at from Tiefencastel. I was in good spirits though, and continued to enjoy the work. The slope finally gave way to a flat plain through the towns of Cunter and Savognin and I delighted in stretching out my legs before the next step up.

The third climb came in thirds. The first third was very tough, taking me up steeply past waterfalls and pine rooted incredibly into the side of the mountain. My regularly hourly break came as this third ended and I had a couple of bananas and a drink, peering up through a little village which was parted by the second third, a lesser slope than I had just climbed. Rounding the corner out of the village I saw high above me the top of the dam which holds in Lake Marmorera and the steep turns back which would take me to that level. This was the final third and I determined to polish it off in one go. I regretted this determination after the first turn back and though I finished the climb as I had wished, I was a real mess at the top, gasping, pouring with sweat and damning my stubborn persistence. I rode gently along the flat lakeside to my lunch stop at the north end, looking back on the great field of ice and the dam.

My recovery time after each of the several climbs had been good and at lunch I was still in very good spirits. I ate four bananas, a couple of oranges and a slab of chocolate and changed my sodden underlayer, appearing for a few minutes like a Putin election poster, bare chested in the snowy wilderness. I knew I had around 600 metres left to climb but I felt up to it as I sat on the roadside barrier waving at cars passing by. Dark glasses in loud Audis generally declined to acknowledge my presence but I did receive a few heartening waves and kindly smiles.

Setting out after lunch I had a brief climb up to the town of Bivio. This was where the nerves started to take hold of me. The map I had in my head placed Bivio at the start of the pass proper and in the near distance I could see the perfect white slope reach ever higher as I rounded the valley corner. Skiers reached the bottom of their runs at the roadside as I tried to pull my mind together to face the slope. The first set of winding turns back were steep and hard. Very early in the day I had lost the ability to assess by sight the grade of the slope ahead of me. The blank snow around me now made it almost impossible to reckon how hard each stretch was going to be. This made it difficult to divide the slope into sections to get me through to the top. On a handful of occasions I was simply unable to complete my self allocated task and this was disheartening. Conversely, I was sometimes able to surpass my next target by some distance, giving me a mental boost to balance out the failures.

After the first big climb a fresh climb appeared above me and I forced myself to maintain the mentality that it would end when it would end and I just had to keep working. I passed this next climb with the same routine of small targets, executed with the same variety of success. During this climb, either fatigue began to set in quicker, the air began to thin or my sugars were running out as I could feel my thighs unable to produce any power at the end of the steeper sections. It was as if I could feel specific points in my muscle where the chemistry of respirations was failing me. The first practical issue this threw up was balance. With the feet clipped into the pedals, if I failed to produce any forward movement,  I would quickly lose balance. A number of times I had to snap out of the pedals in a panic to save falling into the road on one side or the bank of snow on the other.

At length I arrived at the top of this climb and as I rounded the corner the pass played its joker. At the top of a couple of turnbacks was a large stone refuge and while I tried to maintain the above mentality, a little weevil of relief burrowed its way into my brain and my body believed it was the top. Of course, it was not and, after the next climb, standing beside the refuge I could only laugh as I saw a further few corners ahead of me. A refuge attendant assured me these were the last and, with the slope losing gradient all the time, I took on the last stretch in one push, peering over the four foot snow banks to see the little blue sign which I knew stood at the top. Again, I was not able to judge when the road was flattening out so a mild panic set in as I thought I had started downhill and that the sign was buried somewhere in the snow and that I would never know exactly when my efforts had ended and when my relief could begin. The sign came, however, and I dismounted for a long break. I had not conquered the pass, but it had let me through in the end.

The way down was quick and cold and fun until a twang announced I had a broken spoke on my rear wheel. I took a while to fix this with cold hands before cautiously rolling down to a repair shop in Silvaplana where I left the bike for the evening. I then found a room at the least hospitable guest house in the world and passed the evening in a stupor before passing out under a double duvet in my wooden cupboard.

Distance covered 36 miles

Day 13 - Vaduz to Masein

My plastic hotel breakfast in the silent company of a frozen old woman came as a sharp reminder of the benefits of the Couch Surfing project and as I left the room I hoped my cordial goodbye to the waitress would be the last of the trip. After a quick walk around the capital, which is smaller in size and population than my beloved Claygate, I set out north for the border.

I had planned and was expecting an easy morning and much of the afternoon off to eat and rest for the big climb the next day. As soon as I crossed back into Switzerland it became clear that this would not be so. I had failed to notice that the road which would take me from Vaduz to Chur mounted a saddle between a large mountain and a small mountain. On the map, this had appeared a little bump in comparison to the nearby peaks but the 300 metre climb killed me, limbs cold and mind unprepared. Passing through a Swiss military camp at the crest, I could not hold back a wry smile which acknowledged that, even in the foothills, the Alps had already got one over on me.

There followed a long and fast downhill. This introduced me to two new phenomena. Firstly, the frustration of having whole blocks of work and pints of sweat undone by the whimsical friction of some long forgotten glacier dragging you back down to where you started. Secondly, the maniacal shivering of damp, unmoving limbs when travelling at high speed in cold air. I compare this to jumping out of the shower and sitting naked in a 30 mph wind for 15 minutes. The spasms in my thighs put me so off balance I had to slow right down, thereby removing all the benefit of the long downslope.

Finally I arrived on the flat and I could start the day as I had planned it. The weather was better than it had been all trip and it was bizarre to wear half as many layers in the Alps as I had in Alsace, and to be twice as warm. Chur, the oldest city in Switzerland, came and went without much of an impression and soon I was turning the final right angle of the Rhine and making my way to its source at Reichnau.

The source of the great river I had followed for three weeks was announced only by a pair of concrete bridges over its tributaries the Vorder- and Hinterrhein and a mound of bulldozed gravel. I felt more than a little aggrieved that the birth of my companion did not warrant a plaque, a park or even a tacky cafe. Putting this out of my mind, I climbed down to the bank to take a few shots of the joining of the waters and bathed my now hot brow in the cool, clear current.

Saying goodbye, I continued up the Hinterrhein valley to my home for the night, the mountainside village of Masein. When my host, Bettino Fletscher, had told me it was a 15 minute ride up from the village of Thusis, where I had planned to stay, I shrugged this off as nothing. Predictably, my day finished as it had started. I paid heavily for my gross underestimation and arrived at Bettino's - the third highest house in the village - exhausted. Nevertheless, I had made good time and had the best part of the afternoon to get myself ready for the main Alpine climb.

I had a traditional Swiss supper with the Fletschers. The conversation was various and relaxing save for one line from Bettino's father Roman, something like "I have no doubt you will make it over tomorrow, but certainly you will suffer a bit."

Oh, good.

Distance covered 38 miles