Last Day In The Dolomites

I like to travel light, so much so I forgot my razor, my toothpaste and my hair brush for this trip. Doctor Bronner's multipurpose soap makes for quite a foamy toothpaste...and a four Euro plastic gas station comb works okay, while an unshaven look canbe quite fashionable in Italy. I shall be glad to get back to my suitcase in Terni on Monday. For Giovanni getting ready to leave or a day's ride is quite the business, stuffing paper handkerchiefs, coins keys and cigarettes in assorted pockets, reading glasses sunglasses and cellphone...

Eventually we get outside and I put my wam vest in one saddlebag and my waterproofs in the other, cellphone and wallet in my pockets and I'm ready to ride.

We head to Passo Giau (pronounced like Ciao with a soft G)

 

 

 

 

It is 7300 feet up, 2230 meters roughly, and it was freezing cold at the top with a howling wind making everyone feel cold, not just the guy from Key West.

There was a group of open car enthusiasts gathered there and Giovanni was going gaga over the Alfa Romeos and Mercedes classics.

But we had places to go and peop,e to see and it was even too old to take coffee so we zipped down 27 hairpins to the bottom. There were hundreds of motorcycles out on a sunny Saturday and hundreds more cyclists panting their way to the top. I wanted to yell out "only 23 more to go" to the folks near the bottom but I hadn't the heart. They we're all spandex'ed out so I suspect they were quite serious about their weekend riding.

The views in the Dolomites are quite spectacular.

I don't know if it was my bad influence or what but Giovanni took more time to stop and take pictures yesterday. Of me. Happily the pass was open, geöffnet, aperto.

Our plan was to visit the lower slopes of the Marmolada Mountain, which is 11,000 feet tall, th highest spot in the Dolomites and has the only glacier. The mountain was named by the Romans and was first climbed in 1864.

We stopped at the hotel at the base and came across an old motorcycle parked out front. Giovanni had never heard of the Sertum brand which went bust in 1952. Sertum 1943 500cc SV

The note pinned to the bike read: I am old and tired! Please don't climb on or make me carry back packs. I find it disgraceful strangers would do such things to this venerable side valve survivor.

I knew of the brand because my great uncle Pasqualino who worked as an accounting clerk at the Terni steelworks told me of his Sertum 175 which he used to ride in Fascist Party led motorcycle gatherings before World War Two. He was very proud of his Sertum.

The same way Giovanni drools over old cars, so do I drool over old bikes.

I think this is a 1943 500cc side valve.

I went to the loo and found the only old fashioned style toilet of the trip. Luckily, a) I only needed to pee, and b) I had my wits about me. Flushing these bastards produces a tidal wave of water that sloshes all over the china "footprints." I have no idea why these ghastly things used to be at all popular as they seem no cheaper to build than proper toilets. And call me prejudiced but in my opinion proper toilets have a seat incorporated into their design. I remember traveling 35 years ago with an old school chum from England who, when faced with the prospect of squatting to shit in one of these disasters got the habit of never traveling without a length of twine he would anchor to the door handle and to which he would hang on like grim death whilem he squatted over the deadly hole. Giovanni had a few comments of his own when he discovered this thing was the only public toilet for miles around.

Mind you in one of the passes I went to take a piss and found the waiting area for the toilets was co-Ed. I guess I am Italian enough I carried on an inconsequential conversation with a middle aged Italian woman while I stood and peed as she waited for a woman's stall to open up. I find I pee a lot in cold weather when I don't sweat. TMI, perhaps? Anyway...

I liked the alpine feel of the hotel with pictures of old climbers on the wall and so forth.

We sat outside and looked at the Marmolada (above) as we ate (below).

Giovanni had a local specialty a roast pig's leg while I started with alley soup, flavored with smoked bacon:

And then I had an indifferent tough grilled steak that needed salt, and we finished with a classic apple Strudel in this case flavored, deliciously, with pine nuts.

We were stuffed and I desperately needed a nap. Giovanni had a headache making us a less than stellar motorcycle expedition.

We abandoned the warm sunny spot and pressed on.

We stopped for another tourist spot called Lago Carezza, of a peculiar yet natural shade of green.

Cars had to pay a Euro ($1:35) to park and people flocked to see this place I'd never heard of.

It was starting o get dark and we had to home by six as we had a dinner date and miles to ride. We made it home by three minutes after six but it was a hell of a ride up the Pusteria Valley from Bressanone to Dobbiaco. We passed thousands of cars it felt like, weekend drivers, some on dotted lines some on solid lines. We roared past campers and fast cars driven slowly and a few fast cars driven fast. It was the sort of riding that in the US would have got us thrown in jail. One single car Giovanni noted pulled aside to let us by. It was exhilarating.

And tiring so I was glad when Giuseppe, an old friend of Giovanni's with a timeshare nearby came in the car to pick us up. I was a grateful passenger for once, traveling sedately.

Giuseppe and his wife Carla (below) are quite the gourmands it turns out and they have been coming to Alto Adige for decades in their condo. This place, a classic wood mountain hotel was recently renovated and is offering a new menu Giuseppe and Carla wanted to try. I had Spätzel, a German gnocchi dish made of potatoes and smoked ham and it was delicious, followed by grilled sausage, polenta and mushrooms, washed down with a local delicate white wine. Carla finished with crême brûlée,

Giovanni had fruit and ice cream, which he thought was "healthy."

While Giuseppe passed on dessert altogether, I failed to photograph him at table so I append a picture of him taken Friday in front of his time share condo. A nice cheerful man and a good listener to Giovanni's stories:

My pudding was best, chocolate semifreddo which was a kind of nutty ice cream with chocolate sauce in a crisp sweet shell.

We talked of this and that, mutual friends, funny stories, my life in America, and he iniquities of the US health care system compared to the excessive liberality of the Italian system which they think is unsustainably generous. They are all fans of Alto Adige, the German speaking province whose boundary started just fifty yards up the road from where we ate. They admire the order and discipline of the Gemanic culture and want more of it in Italy. I say if the German speakers love Austria so much let them vote to rejoin Austria. Oh no my Italian friends said, they'll never do that, they get too many tax breaks in Italy where they are special. Which makes Alto Adige typically perversely Italian in my opinion.

They dropped us off back in Cortina d'Ampezzo where we went for a last walk "to digest dinner" Giovanni said as my cardiologist friend smoked another cigarette.

Then he called his wife and finally turned out the light. "What the hell are you writing?" he asked plaintively as he saw the glow of my mini iPad as I wrote this essay.

None of your business I said. Learn English then you can read it. Va fa un culo he said.

Then he started snoring.

Sunday we ride 400 miles home, hopefully avoiding the predicted rain.

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Riding The Dolomites

The first thing you have to understand when you take off on a motorcycling trip with Giovanni is that coffee breaks are de rigeur.

The second thing is that with Giovanni tourism is secondary to riding. The ride is the thing. We stopped for a cigarette break for him and I said that World War One cemetary looks interesting. No he said not at all.

"Your sacrifice is never forgotten" the sign said in Italian and German as fighters from both sides in the war are buried here, Italian and Austro-Hungarian. This corner of Italy is a place that has changed hands over the centuries and Teutonic, Slavic and Italian names are liberally mixed up.

Giovanni smoked and I got thoughtful. Are you tired he asked? I should have been considering the miles we had ridden me hunched over the ridiculously narrow handlebars of the 170 horsepower BMW sport bike...

I have a plan, Giovanni said as we gathered Thursday morning in Terni to puzzle over a map and figure out our ride. Oil levels checked and tire pressure measured on his six cylinder 1600 cc BMW GTL, we took off or the Dolomite mountains in German speaking Italy.

Naturally the rain caught us a short distance out of Terni and we stopped, us and a few other impovident motorcyclists to regroup have lunch and hope for the best. When we get over the mountain pass, another half hour it will be sunny again Giovanni insisted. Easy for him with his big windshield and heated seat... My buddy the cardiologist lit a cigarette to help think things over.

The sun came out and we rode gas station to gas station averaging an astonishing 150 km/hr, (90mph). I have to say that zipping along on Italian freeways is a lot more fun than riding among dreary American drivers who seem to resent anyone riding faster than they dare drive. Italian drivers pulled aside for us. The K1200S is steady as a cruise missile at high speed. 170kph/105mph shows 6,000rpm on a tach that redlines at 11,000rpm. I maxed out at 200kph/125mph where the machine is perfectly stable but I feel unable to concentrate hard enough for such sustained speeds. 150kph was comfortable for me with bursts to 180/110(mph).

It wasn't really dark by the time we got the autonomous Alto Adige region of Italy, a weird throw back to World War One, inside the high mountain ranges it just seemed to get dark and cold early. Italy was on the winning side in that war (where Hemingway participated driving ambulances) and took over the Austrian province of South Tyrol to put its border on the geographically suitable Brenner Pass at the top of the mountains. which created a natural and lasting border between Italy and the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, soon to become the Austrian republic.

As a result a whole bunch of German speakers on the south slopes of the mountain range have been Italian citizens for almost a century, yet they still get tax breaks and Austria offers scholarships for them to study in Vienna and signage is in German (first) and then Italian:

Alto Adige in Italian means "the upper reaches of the Adige (ah-dee-jay) River" where in German the province is called Süd Tirol and though most people speak Italian they mangle it with a thick German accent. As neither Giovanni nor I speak German we went with the Italian nomenclature. We stayed in Oristei, not Saint Ulrich, and we ate dumplings and spice-free soup for dinner in our alpine hotel. After dinner a group of tourists sat around and sang German folk songs, and though Giovanni, no mean guitarist tried to join in he retreated muttering "they don't speak a lick of Italian," and we drank grappa instead by way of consolation.

I felt a bit like Basil Fawlty who when entertaining German guests in his hotel went around reminding himself (and failing) to "not mention the War." I was not at ease in bilingual Alto Adige and was glad when we set our sights on Cortina d'Ampezzo in neighboring Belluno province as our base of riding operations for the weekend. Cortina is off the map to the right:

Giovanni does not travel light, carrying all conceivable clothes, a hurricane force hair dryer and a complete electric espresso set I am sure my wife would adore.

Eventually we got packed and we left.

It was a glorious ride up to Passo Sella:

 

 

 

 

 

The only thing was, when we got there just before noon it was 36 degrees, windy and snowing lightly. I could see my breath. I turned the handle bar warmer onto high.

The ride down the other side was a series of hairpins (tornanti) and I lost count somewhere around 23.

At the bottom of the hill we found lots of signage:

 

And all these hairpins can pose a problem...

...for drivers of cages who get stuck behind slow moving trucks and RVs. 170 horsepower sometimes is very useful...

...to get ahead of the line and enjoy the views.

 

BMWs are by far the most popular touring bikes in Italy. Every parking lot resembled a dealership convention.

Giovanni was riding the only six cylinder BMW we saw and he was called upon to discuss its merits by more or less rapt crowds.

 

As we got close to Cortina we found ourselves in a long line of German BMW riders who kept up us in order with no rash passing maneuvers allowed.

Cortina is a fashionable winter ski resort and it is a pretty enough alpine town. We parked as required outside most Italian city centers and walked into the town.

 

 

 

Hiking is a big deal in summer. We didn't fit in on any count, not hikers not skiers not fashionable.

But we had our usual substantial lunch, this time in Italian speaking Italy and I got pasta, not dumplings:

Pappardelle ai funghi -wide pasta with delicious local mushrooms which I enjoyed so much I had some more funghi in my second course with sausage and polenta.

Travel and exploration notwithstanding I love my Italian food when in Italy.

And the afternoon ride was just as good to Dobbiaco and back on winding mountain roads.

 

 

All in Italian, too.

 

 

 

Great stuff, great vacation.

 

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