versione italiana
23/07/2015: tarvisio - klagenfurt am wörthersee (129 km - climb 1556 m)
austria
slovenia
italy
tarvisio
klagenfurt am wörthersee
Despite the early wake up, among a huge breakfast and the setup of bikes and luggages, we are not able to start before 9 am. We follow the signs to Fusine/Slovenia and we travel along a stretch of main road,
until we find the access to the cycling route D2 also known as Alpe Adria that, probably, is a variation of that toward Salisburg. Soon we discover that we could have avoid that stretch of main road, seeing that the cycling route start from Tarvisio. Travelling along the italian stretch of the track we understand why the Alpe Adria route won the title as cycling route of the year, perfect asphalt, clear signage, fences and parking areas brand new. We pass Fusine but we proceed straight, without deviate to the lakes,
seeing that we don't know what will expect us more forward. Passed the border with the Solvenia we continue to follow the signs for D2 and we start to skirt the Sava river up to Kranjska Gora, renowned skiing station that seems to have succes also in summer, looking at the traffic of pedestrians that we meet in town center. We stop for a technical stop, Frank has problems with a shoe, therefore he would like to buy protective plantars, I take some bread in a bakery and I rest a little bit, looking people that pass in front of the cycle's store. It seems there is the training camp of Slovenian basketball team seeing that a giant in slippers passes close to me, wearing the resting uniform of national team. We continue our trip
along the river until we arrive in proximity of the toll booth, where the route pass on a secondary road skirting the highway. We arrive to Jesenice, a town surrounded by industries, we make a short rest at a tires center to inflate the tyres and we pass the river to reach Lipce, where starts the climb toward the Bled lake, along a road a little bit congested. Is lunch time and we ignore the lenght and the slope of the ascent that expects us. A sign helps us to understand that next 10/15 minutes we will have to suffer, at 15%, underneath the sun. With big calm we cross the hill and we continue in the middle of the slovenian countryside. Frank continues to ask me where is the lake, i continue to say that it's almost done, after some ups and downs we reach the village and, at a crossroad, we stop in front of a supermarket to take some sandwiches. We are a little bit exhausted by the warm, we descend toward the lake where we sit on a bench to eat the sandwiches. On the right, on the hill we see the castle,
in front of us this mirror of water that, honestly, seems a little bit dirty.
The area seems to be popular, mostly by crew of english teenagers and the buildings around the lake have nothing of characteristic. There is a big mall and a lot of night clubs that everynight will be full of excited young. We make a digestive stroll on the walkway along the lake, then we decide to continue toward Austria. From Jesenice to Bled there weren't cycling routes, the same from Bled to the Austrian border, so we have to invent an easy itinerary, consulting Google Map and Open Cycling Map. Actually from Bled to Lesce there is a cycling route that we take at high speed after a break to clean the handlebar's bag of Frank, flooded by the coke. We proceed toward Hlebce in a road that, looking at the map, seems easy and, passing on it, we have confirm of that. We pass close to the headquarter of Elan and we decide to stop at the shop, where Frank buy the plantar he was looking for. The temperature is still high even though at west, toward Bled lake, it is raining a lot. We restart and we pass Begunje na Gorenjskem, here the road turns to the right and it climbs on a tough slope. We skirt the hills along continous ups and downs and we enjoy the wonderful landscape of the valley on the right.
Toward Austria the sky doesn't seem promise something good, the temperature decreases of some degrees and it starts to rain. In the meantime we reach Trzic where, after some route mistakes, we turn to the left toward Podljubelj. Useless to say that this road repeatedly scrambles on the hills then goes down at the state road level. We continue until, passed a bridge, we come into a graveled trail where is impossible go forward by bike. We meet two hikers, then we take the only doable street: the state road. I start to immagine the worst epilogue for this first stage, seeing that, in few kilometres there should be a tunnel and I really don't know how pass it, maybe on a truck of someone that, moved by compassion, will load our bikes. The road continues to climb for some kilometres until we reach a parking area in front of an adventure park. We ask for information to a waitress that informa us that is forbidden to pass the tunnel by bike, but someone does it. She fills our water bottles, we rest for a while on the benches under the trees and we resume the climb, overtaken at supersonic speed by a Mercedes AMG.On Google Maps i saw that before the tunnel, on the right, there is a road with tough slope that allows to overtake the mountain, avoiding cars but, seeing our condition, we don't think to take that. Fortunately the tunnel has a sidewalk large enough to pass by bikes, therefore we go forward on it for almost two kilometres without risks. We think the bad is done, from here to Klagenfurt the road descend constantly. In effect for the first kilometres the road goes down, even though the wind is against us, then, suddenly, it climbs again at about 15%. We pass slowly even this hurdle and restart to descend, always against the wind, up to the outskirt of ferlach where the road toward Klagenfurt becomes an highway. Now we have to go to the Drava cycling route and follow the signs to Klagenfurt. We go toward west along the main road and, after some kilometres, we ask information to a guy that suggest us to skirt the river toward east and to pass it on the highway bridge, not through the railway bridge. We go back from the cycling route but it doesn't seem possible to reach the highway, therefore we take the main road up to the traffic circle that brings to the toll road. From here, through a lane, we take a sidewalk, protected by a guardrail, on the bridge. Upset we continue up to a parking area where, there are not signs, therefore we take the highway that, after few kilometres, becomes a congested road. We continue without hesitations toward our target and, after some mistakes at 6 pm we reach the Cityhotel Ratheiser. The pains are not over, the room is at the first floor, without elevator, and, once opened the door we discover that the room is divided in two floors, the beds are upstairs, the toilet downstairs. We decide to leave the luggages downstair and to bring upstairs just few things. We stroll around the town center
then we have dinner at Bierhaus zum Augustin, therefore I eat an icecream and, we go back to the hotel.
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