Dolomites and the coming out of the Alps

The next day after Innsbruck got me through the Italian frontier! Yay!

I can’t believe this is the fourth frontier I’m crossing since setting out from Paris (actually fifth, I’m already in Slovenia but I’ll let you know how that goes later on!). Mountains rise and fall, lakes fill and empty, forests grow and amidst it all, there lies a cyclist, always going from one mountain to the next.

Italy greeted me with the best it had. So many people told me about the Dolomites, I had built up quite the hype already. A part of me was afraid though. The thing is that when most people see a grand mountain, or the THE place to go and to miss for nothing in the world, I see yet another pretty mountain while my mind is still baffled by the past fifteen and the imposing nature standing all around that very spot. A vastness that people sadly don’t see as they’re so focused on the very spot they keep telling me about. If you want to observe that phenomenon, just go to the Louvre, in Paris. People crowd and rush to see Mona Lisa, but you’ll soon find out that the paintings around are scarcely looked at.

I so understandably was a bit nervous as I strode up, yet across another mountain pass to finally land in a valley. Nothing special up to there, but the more you go in, the more you get enclaved in it, the more the looming cliffs appear and the more the majestic nature of the scenery shines upon the crowd of pine trees. And me.

First shadows slowly coming into focus because of the suffocating heat, then…

Ten thousand kilometres! Yes, that’s since the very start, Argentina, San Miguel de Tucuman. Brings back memories, doesn’t it?

I camped there, among the pines, the silence only broken by the occasional bell around the cow’s neck when the latter scratched her ear or ate some grass.

Then, I set out the day after. Only to realise I hadn’t read the map properly. The slope was up. up. Not down. And the road was a gravel road, not a paved one. But the climb was barely 2.5km long. “HA!” I thought, I can do this.

I tried to take the picture as vertical as possible. Not quite sure if you realise what I was up against, but to me that looks like one hell of a bloody damn slope. There were times were I could barely push my bike, times were people helped me get through a rough spot and times where I simply slipped and scorched my knee all over. But centimetre by centimetre, meter by meter, knee blossoming with a wide variety of new coloured bruises, I climbed.

I saw someone ride his bicycle uphill. I didn’t. I may be crazy, but I’m not that far gone. Not quite.

I don’t regret my climb a single instant.

This is what greeted me on the top! Splendid view, grazing cows, the whole quickly taken away by a ruthless and fleeting storm. Once passed I went on to the other side of the mountain, down, and down…. But not quite with the usual thrill. No, because the downhill path was just as made for bicycles as the one uphill. And I so carefully climbed down the mountain, trying not to put too much pressure on my now green-red-brown-purple-yellow-ish knee.

Grand total of the day? 15km. And yes since you’re asking, I’m quite proud of it, to be honest.

I then set out to go to the city Udine. I had planned to camp close by and find myself a nice spot so I could visit the city early in the morning. I knew that a storm was gathering on my tail and slowly creeping up on me. Usually I prefer not to look too often. Keeps the surprise, you see? So that when the rain finally falls, you simply weather it and get on with it. Except this time I did look.

Holy molly, what the hell is that? I have to find a spot, and quick!

That’s more or less a censored version of what popped in my head at the time. And as you can see, it’s mostly fields out there. That kind of guaranteed me a pretty non-ideal spot for my tent. I gave out a burst of effort and sped on. On the left, I jumped into the first non-worked field I saw. I was running to its centre as to still get a shred of cover from the road, albeit only by the distance that last feat procured me. My bike dropped to the dirt I looked back up.The clouds were forming a mass more menacing than ever.

Though less dark, the gathering mass made up for it in lightning strikes and gushes of wind finally hitting me straight on. As the experience with the Patagonian desert kicked in, I set up a chronometer and got to work. 12’13”. That’s the time it took from rushing to my bike, getting everything out of the bags, securely picthing the tent up (under heavy wind) and throwing everything inside, myself included.

That was the view. On the right, a still open sky with the sun happily shining. On the left, a chaos of lightning strike, wind and water rushing up towards me.

Turns out my tent held up just fine. As the sky raged and spit outside, not a drop of rain got inside and in no time I was cooking my kinoa with tomato sauce. All was as it should be.

I sent out a message to Riccardo, a friend of mine coming from Udine (we know each other from Paris). What I didn’t expect was for him to be there as well. We set out to meet one another at noon the day after. But no soon had I entered the city that a voice called me from behind “Chloe! Chloe!” Teresa, another friend whom I met in Paris was just standing there, smiling broadly at me.

My day, which would have consisted in quickly touring across Udine turned out in the friendliest of gathering, all of us sipping at our drinks before I set out to lunch with Riccardo. All in all, quite the day!

From there on, I travelled east, towards Slovenia and its capital, Lubljana. That’s where I’m at at the moment, but I keep my new discoveries and stories for the next episode.

With love,

Chloe and Mia