Day 7 - Mauten to Venice

Tuesday 3rd July 2018

Today promises to be, well, interesting is probably the best word. After a few hours wriggling through the southern Italian Alps we will drop down off the mountains and ride as quickly as we can to Fusina the ferry port of Venice.

We have no advance booking but we hope to find passage on the Minoan Lines ferry that will take us south down the length of the Adriatic Sea to Igoumenitsa on the northernmost tip of mainland Greece.

I have a remarkably clear head after all the beer sampling of last night. So we enjoy our first Austro-Germanic breakfast of the tour so far in the pleasant surroundings of the Loncium dining room. There are glazed pits in the floor where old beer barrels can be viewed, beery sarcophagi to remind us of the Hotel’s provenance.

I've banged on about the the qualities and variance of breakfasts throughout Europe in previous blogs so I’ll not repeat myself here, except to say that the Bierhotel Loncium is quite excellent and it takes a full hour to do it justice.

At 09:30 we pack our stuff and bid farewell to our new friend Knut. Maybe we will meet again one day.

Cloudy start to the day on Plockenpass

Kotschach-Mauten lies at the foot of the Plockenpass and the Italian border. The day is cloudy but warm and patches of blue sky are appearing as the sun burns away the mist. After Plockenpass we turn off onto the provincial roads and follow a winding route through an area that is unfamiliar to me. The roads are narrow and very twisty as we climb up and down small pass roads too rural to warrant names of their own. 

We stop to look over a lake with a complicated dam at one end. There are hundreds of large fish swimming around the dam in the clear turquoise water.

Sharks in the water?

One that does have a name is the Passo Rest. This is an astonishing and very technical route with dozens of tight hairpins. But the road surface is generally good and the high ground is cool as we ride through pine forests as the sun starts to shine through the trees. There is almost no traffic. 

Coffee stop after the exertion of riding over Passo Rest

One final pass brings us to a big ski resort. The Alps just stop abruptly here and the views down to the Adriatic would be stunning on a clear day. Sadly the whole area is smothered in a heat haze as we drive down the wide and perfect resort road on the south side.

Here we join the autostrada for the run into Venice. It is now 4pm and blisteringly hot in the still air of the plain. The first autostrada entrance is blocked off so we have a frustrating run through corn fields and small villages until we find the next entrance. 

The gorge behind the dam

Then a fast blast in heavy traffic. It costs €6.20 in toll fees for the 50km to The Venice exit. Since we don’t know if we can buy passage on tomorrow's ferry we check out the Fusina ferry terminal first. Here we find that our intended ferry at 12 noon tomorrow has been cancelled but there is an earlier one leaving for Greece at 04:30 in the morning. The terminal is chaotic with many travellers rebooking but there is room for two bikes and fortunately a 4-berth cabin is available. We book it at a total cost of €130 each, though we may have to share our cabin.

Then it’s time to find a hotel. We don’t fancy staying up all night until boarding and we have a football match to watch. The Hotel Palladio is ideal for our purposes. It is in Malcontenta about 4km from the ferry port and only €51 for a twin room. It’s not air-conditioned but has a TV so we can watch England squeak through into the World Cup quarter finals with a win against Columbia on penalties after extra time ends at 1-1. 

So with the alarm set for 2am we finally get a three hour sleep before tomorrow’s adventures begin. 

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