Minas in the Mountains

mountains are his happy place

Hurray! Minas is so glad that he is back in the mountains. It is one of his happy places.

Although you have heard me say that I am not doing mountains ever again, I am actually enjoying it. That could have something to do with the fact that I got my marching orders in Canada that there were to be no complaints this trip. That must have permeated my subconscious somehow. 

In Italy, there are many mountains and many roads and there are just as many tunnels that go through the mountains. I hate tunnels, called gallerias here; but on most of these roads, bicycles are not allowed. Sometimes to get from one side of the mountain to the other, there is a two kilometer long galleria which we don’t take. Instead we do the 8 kilometre trip up over the mountain and back down the other side, rejoining the main road just where the cars emerge from the tunnel. Five minutes for them but over an hour for us. The bonus is that the mountain road has few cars so it is more enjoyable.

On the day that we were heading up into the mountains of the Abruzzo National Park, a friendly chap who cycled a lot became interested in our story as we were getting the bikes ready outside the hotel. When we told him where we were headed, he cryptically noted that it was quite a climb. Minas showed him our proposed route on the map and he advised us that, while it was a very lovely road, it was also closed because of a landslide. Great! 

But then this angel of a man spent the time to tell us of a route that would work to get us to Alfadena, and to show it to us on the map. When Minas noted that there was a galleria on the part of the trip that was on a very busy road, he confidently said that there was a diverzione around it. That encounter was worth its weight in gold. The busy national road was horrible and the men at the gas station just before the tunnel said there was no way around it. I was as nervous as could be but when we got to the galleria, I noticed a road to a farmhouse just below us and Minas went down and asked the homeowner. 

Yes, you could cycle on the old road, which was closed to traffic but would get us back on to the main road without having to do the tunnel. Thank you, kind gentleman and dear lady and the real angels looking after us.

 

So that is how we arrived in the Abbruzzo National Park where the roads were very reasonable in their grade up but they were very long – like 16 kilometres of up without a break. The scenery made up for it. 

There are several villages in the park, some of which are ski resorts and some of which have lovely lakes. I am sure that the place is overrun with holiday-makers in the summer months. At this time of the year it is fairly quiet. We did the Park over two days, one to Alfadena at 823 metres and the other to Scanno.

I was a little worried when I knew we had to cycle to Scanno which is at an elevation of 1015 metres. Little did I know, and less was I told, that to reach the village I actually had to go to 1630 metres before I cycled down into the village of Scanno. 

yes there was snow at 1630 metres

yes my crazy husband had on shorts and a t shirt

It was a good day of riding though, and our two day stay in Scanno was memorable. Maria Luisa of the B&B, Le Rocce di Scanno, was even more charming than her comfortable and architecturally interesting house. The medieval village made for delightful wandering around and we saw what we came for; and that is the traditional costumes of the women of Scanno. 

Although the old ladies still wear their black dresses and their intricately arranged scarves to church, there was also a special exhibit to commemorate the May 1^st holiday. Several of the women had on the “dress” version of the traditional costume and were parading around the village posing for pictures with the tourists who had come up for a holiday lunch. Minas loved it!

the tourist gets into the act

We had a lovely long run down from the mountains to the little town of Popoli. I thought that was it for difficult rides, but I was shocked the next day to find ourselves faced with a mountain road to avoid the tunnels, that just couldn’t be biked. We pushed our bikes for six kilometres up the steep 12 to 17 per cent grades with no relief but the pretty mountain wildflowers growing at our feet. 

The last three kilometres were easier and we managed them with slightly less

 effort. 

There are even times when we can’t find our way over the mountains at all. Sometimes there are too many tunnels and sometimes they are too steep and sometimes they just don’t go where we want to go. From L’Aquila, in the shadow of the Gran Sasso Mountains, the highest in this part of Italy, we took a taxi which went through several tunnels, the longest of which was 10 kilometres until the driver left us on a road which could be biked to our next destination.

we are currently in Macerata

For the moment, we are in the hills rather than the mountains but I am sure that Minas has not seen the last of his beloved mountains on this trip.

 

Ciao!