Day 44: Forza Italia

13 Aug 2011

Day 44: Travel to Italy and taking a breather. We are on the road again; it’s out of Austria and in to Italy, heading for Val di Fassa in the Dolomites. We are not due there until tomorrow, so before we hit the 14th bike park of the URT we have made a small stop over in Cortina for Tim to re-live some of his old climbing memories from a few years ago. Seriously though if I hear another anecdote about this crag and that via ferrata route then he’s going in the river. We chose the scenic route for the drive, over the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse (high alpine pass), so of course as soon as we had paid the €29 at the entrance to the National Park and begun the twisting road up to 2504m the clouds rolled in and visibility went down to zero. So we missed the views of pretty much everything, including the Pasterze Glacier. Things got slightly better on the way down the other side, so we stopped for a quick picture to at least prove we had been there, and Tim played with photoshop to put together a cool panorama. Not much else happening. Had a walk round the town in Cortina – why is it the super-rich manage to dress like such jokers?! Finally, just want to mention the milestone that was reached in Whistler Bike Park yesterday – their 1,000,000th rider down the trails, which is impressive and a sign of the rise and rise of bike parks! Lets hope a few others follow on from their mark.

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