The Great Altopiano Maze...and the conquering of Mt Forno!

I write this post from an internet cafe in Venice! Yes, it is amazing but we have finally reached Venice. The two previous posts which are also new were written in Levico Terme, but the silly librarian decided we weren't allowed to use the internet again, so I couldn't publish them till now, grrr! So apologies for the delay.

Anyway, we got here and now I will tell you how.

From Levico Terme we bought a map, and spoted the Altopiano dei Sette Comuni, a 'highplain' riddled with old 4WD tracks that sat between us and Venice, including a peak named Monte Forno. We had to go there. So we began yet another huge grind (a 1500m climb day) up a very windy, very very narrow little road to Passo Vezzena (1404).

Then the road we took continued around gradually climbing up to the Alto Piano. It was a remarkably warm sunny day, with lots of Italians out for a sunny sunday stroll, and the friendly farmland reminded us of Banks Peninsula. We had a picnic in the sun, and then continued on past mushroom pickers and walkers alike. As it got later the road got trickier, big stones which were very difficult with our panniers and skinny tyres.

Luckily we reached the first of several bivvies we had seen on the map, and despite its tiny size and simplicity, it proved a comfortable wee home for the night. It was in a cool spot surronded by tussocky hills, and some ruins from the war. The whole Altopiano was the scene of battle in WW1 between Italy and Austria, and is covered in tunnels and ruins. We had some candles and a bottle of red wine...what more could we need?

We had a late start for a pretty cruisy day, continuing up the difficult rocky mountain bike road, testing our balance skills. We came across a pretty well and filled up with water, then walked 30 minutes into the coolest bivvy ever! It had a wonderful view back over the Dolomites, and was super cozy with a roaring fire (there were 2 Italian guys already staying there) a mezzanine with one big mattress were Chris and I slept, and heaps of supplies like candles, running water, sugar etc etc. In the setting sun we decided to walk to the highest peak of the Altopiano called Cima Dodici, which took about 30 mins and we got an amazing view over the ranges we had been over the last 2 weeks. It was wonderful.

Back at the hut the Italian guys treated us to their '8 Star' hosptiality, and plied us with beer, fancy cheese, chocolates, cakes till we were bursting! Then we slept in the 'Sahara' that was the top bunk - a bit too hot! We got up really late and returned to the bikes just after lunch time..opps. Back on to the 'battle with the rocks' we continued down the road to Mt Forno, a rather insignificant summit, perhaps, but nevertheless it had to be climbed. We bush bashed through the pines, and Chris emerged victorious at the top for a photoshot on his very own mountain (o:

Then it was on down through the Altopiano maze... our map was hopeless and there were tracks everywhere. It took hours of biking on rough tracks up and down before we finally emerged from the maze just as it got dark! We reached Asiago, then biked up into a further maze in the pine forests above Asiago on the hunt for a campspot. The area was full of War Graves, and in the dark the looming pine trees made it rather eerie, and we crept thankfully into our friendly wee tent and fell asleep. We were woken to the sound of gunfire, and for some time thought we had travelled back in time! We hastily packed up, and biked further through the pine maze to discover there were hunters everywhere blasting away despite the fact there were actually lots of walkers about...we decided they had obviously forgotten the war was over!

Thankfully we exited the maze after some hours, and descended over 1000m into the haze of the plains! We reached Ballano by midday, ate lunch, then decided to tackle the nasty final stretch into Venice. Unfortunatly our map for this section was also terrible, and the roads were so so busy. Trucks grumbled past, and we ended up diving of sideroads to try and escape. As a result we biked far more then the 60 km, and after 4.5 hour solid biking finally arrived on the outskirts of Venice.

It was another mission to find our prebooked abin at a campground, due to unpassable motorways, roads, train tracks, etc.. but by 9 oclock we had finally found it, and collapsed gratefully on the comfortable beds in our warm cabin. What a relief! So that's how we got here! Now we plan to have a couple of days here, go and explore Venice proper, then continue South on another adventure across through Tuscany to Pisa, following some Mountainbike routes we have on a neat map Albert gave us, which should take about 10 days. After that...well..you will have to wait and see! Goodbye! (Text al la Em, photos al la Chris).