April 23 - Montagnana continued

More pics

April 23 - Montagnana

We spend a few hours exploring this walled city. Quite impressive with some 15th century venetian gothic architecture.

April 22 - Lake Garda

Unfortunately it rained for most of the day when we passed through this picturesque valley. Would love to come back and see it on a sunny day. We rode down the east shore of the lake.

April 21 - Adige Valley

The weather was not great when we left the apple farm but we still enjoyed the blooming orchards around us.
Can you find the small castle in one of the pictures above. It is a bit more obvious in the picture than in real life. It blends in so well with the rocks around it.

April 19-20 - Apple Farm

Further down the valley, we visited James' friends Kathrin and  Matteo, Silvia and Egon and their kids. We ended up staying for two nights because they were such a fun bunch to hang out with. We stayed in the pickers cabin in the middle of the blooming orchard. Playing Wii with the kids was so fun. I totally sucked at it, which was one of the amusing aspects of it. Any kind of video game and I never got along too well.

VIELEN DANK EUCH ALLEN. DIE ZEIT BEI EUCH HAT UNS SEHR SPASS GEMACHT UND WIR FREUEN UNS AUF EIN WIEDERSEHEN.

April 18 - continued

More pics from the bike route.
That night we stayed with friends of James' who live just off the bike path.

VIELEN DANK, KATHRIN UND MICHAEL, FUER EURE GASTFREUNDSCHAFT. HOFFENTLICH SIEHT MANN SICH WIEDER EINMAL, ENTWEDER IM SUEDTIROL ODER IN KANADA.

April 18- Val Venosta in Suedtirol (Italy)

Had a fast descent from the Swiss-Italian border down into Val Venosta (Vinschgau). In Glurns we were forced to take an extended break to fix James' flat tire. This was not unwelcomed since Glurns is a most charming little walled city.

But what may the cause of the flat tire be? With our Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires punctures are so rare that we almost forget where we placed our patch kits. Well, for those of you who like techy bike talk, keep reading because I will explain the cause of our trouble. When James purchased his new rear wheel in Switzerland it came with this stiff, plastic rim tape, which looks fancy and such but its edges are very sharp and can slice the tube open if it slides around at all. We were aware of this upon purchase but the eyelets on the rim had been thickly covered in wax to keep them from rusting. To mount the soft edged, fabric like rim tape all that wax would have had to be removed in order for that tape to stick. So since the fancy plastic rim tape fit into the rim very snuggly with hardly any room to slide, we had decided to leave the plastic tape on and hope for the best. Clearly that was a mistake because during our steep descent the breaking action had heated the rim up to the point where the wax liquified resulting in the rim tape sliding around and ultimately slicing the tube. Luckily James had kept the old fabric rim tape which was a real life saver on this day. At the bike shop they had assured us that the plastic rim tape is no problem but the wheel of a fully loaded bike clearly behaves differently than that of a regular bike, especially on a steep down hill stretch.

Luckily all was well after half hour of inspection and repair time. The rest of the day we spent on the famous Val Venosta bike path which runs along the Adige River through apple orchards and cute little towns.

See www.etsch-radweg.com.

Conveniently, this part of northern Italy is German speaking so any communication was no problem.

Brigitta, de Veloweg waer oepis fuer dich!!! Alles gat ganz liecht abwaerts und mit dim E bike waers sowiso keis Problem. Nimm dir emal de Herbert under de Arm und sVelo zwuesched Bei und los is Suedtirol fuer es paar Taeg. Mir hend di ganz Ziit gseit dass de Radweg wo vo Innsbruck bis Verona verlaeuft so super waer fuer dich und de Herbert. Mir sind de Teil vo Glurns bis Mori gfahre.

April 16 continued

I love the architecture in Switzeland's canton of Graubuenden. The houses look so solid and the etching and decorative paintings on the walls give them even more character.

We had lunch next to the church in Tschierv, a small town in Val Mustair, not far from the Italian border. As we sat there a fat toad came hopping along and clearly looked quite lost in the stone wall surrounded church yard. It hopped over to our bikes and tried to shelter underneath them. We took pitty on this little creature which was so ugly and cute at the same time. With the help of a plastic bag it was trapped in no time and released in the pasture on the other side of the fence. May it hop around there happily ever after.

That night we stealth camped in a beautiful little forest. I dont think thats allowed in Switzerland so it was even more exciting.

April 16 Ofenpass

Gorgeous ride from Silvaplana to St. Moritz and down to Zernez, the gateway for Switzerland's one national park. From there we started the ascent to the Ofenpass. The road passed through the national park which sort of reminded me of the Kootenays. Very quiet, wild and rugged. Finally opened the baggie of chocolate covered almonds from Christa. Mmmmm...

More Photos from Julierpass

...and the birthday chocolate bug made it too!!! (Thanks Christa!)

April 15 - 16 Davos and Julierpass

On the 15th we rode up to Klosters and Davos after staying with my uncle Ernst the night before. Sorry no pics from this day. On the way down to Tiefencastel we had to ride through a 2.7 km tunnel which was super fun but freezing cold. I had no idea mountains are so cold inside. That night we slept in a barn in a town with the name Tinizong. Sounds way to Chinese to belong to a Swiss Alp town.

On the 16th we climbed the Julier Pass which comes out near St. Moritz.

Pics:
-Tinizong
-Along the Julierpass
-Us eating Glarner Birrewegge from Brigitta. (Herbert und Brigitta, die zwei Bilder hemmer speziell fuer oi gmacht. Mit dem feine Snack simmer ohni Problem de Julier uf cho. Mmmm soo fein gsi!!)

April 13 & 14 - Back on the Road

Alright, this is my first blog post via email from my android phone. From now on most updates will be made this way because it is easier to find Wifi than it is to get a hold of a computer. (Not so many puplic libraries here in Europe).
In the past I always posted pictures from my camera's memory card but because of the limited computer access I decided to take more pictures with my phone from which I can then update the blog directly. My appologies for the reduction in visual quality but I hope you will still enjoy following our trip, which we are curious to find out where it will take us.

April 13 was our first day back on the road. Uncle Herbert and my cousins John, Simon and Josua accompanied us for most of the way. (Hope to post those pics later. They are all on my camera's memory card which I cannot access right now) . Grandma and Aunt Christa followed with the car for a short distance. It was a beautiful ride mostly on bike paths along the Toesstal (Toess Valley) with a beautiful view of the alps at the end of the day. Our destination that day was my uncle Elias' place near Uznach. Uznach is known for its Storch population which inhabits several roofs along the street we rode down. Soo cool. I have never seen wild Storchs before.

Next morning Elias accompanied us for a while with his bike. We rode over Kerenzerberg with a gorgeous view of Wallensee and more snowy peaks. Sorry, the good shots are also on my camera.
Aunt Roesli met up with us at a cafe later on.

IT WAS SO GREAT TO SPEND SOME MORE TIME WITH YOU. THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!

A little further along Herbert and Brigitta surprised us with a quick visit on the road on their 26th wedding anniversary road trip.

WAS FUR EN UEBERRASCHIG DASS MIR OI NOMAL GSEH HEND. ES HET OIS RIISIG GFREUT. DANKE NOMAL FUER ALLES!!!!!

Switzerland Part 2

Pizza night at the Fiechter's

DANKE VIIIIL MAL FUER DE TOLLI ABIG. ISCH SO SUPER GSI OI ZGSEH, NUR LEIDER VIL ZCHURZ. 

my pizza in the oven. 

 Some of my many relatives

My three super cool aunts Mirjam, Hanna und Lisa. Love you so much!!!!! 

IT IS RUMMIKUB TIME AT GROSI'S!! (Rummikub is Grandma's favorite game, we played it allllll the time....in style) (nice face Christa, hahaha)

Visiting Esther, my mom's godmother

Snow hike in Sternenberg 

Celebrating a good day with Grandma (in fact, we are just giving her a demo of what she can do with her liquor collection, cheers) 

Tobogganing with uncle and aunt Elias and Roesli.

 Almost every mountain has a little restaurant on it in Switzerland so you can warm up and have a good time after a tiring hike up. 

 Snowshoe trip up to the Schilt mountain (distant peak centre right of image)

 Summit lunch

 Great view of the alps.

Birthday brunch at aunt Christa's.

THANK YOU, CHRISTA AND GROSI, SO MUCH FOR THE BEAUTIFUL DAY AND EVERYTHING ELSE. THERE IS TOO MUCH TO LIST. LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!

Cheers to our last game of Rummikub!

ALSO BIG THANKS TO JOHANNA HARDER AND FAMILY FOR THE LOVELY EVENING AND AMAYING BIRTHDAY CAKE. IT WAS SO GREAT TO SEE YOU ALL AND I REALLY ENJOYED OUR CONVERSATIONS. I cannot access the pictures from that night at the moment but I hope to post them at a later date. 

This was a brief overview of the last four weeks we spent here in Switzerland. The account is not as detailed as it could be but I hope you got a bit of a taste of what happened.

See you next time I get Wifi access....wherever that will be.