We left our fabulous host Luciano in Sovramonte with you guessed it, a final grappa laced coffee and descended down yesterdays hard earned 5 kms to cross the river and climb immediately 5 kms towards Lamon.
It was apparent waiting on the top of the climb that Kev was struggling more than normal and upon pulling up complained of chest pain and severe shortness of breath. Thankfully it wasn't a heart attack as I was internally debating whether I'd have the courage to go mouth to mouth, but most likely Kev thought, a cracked rib from his fall going into San Rocco a few days back.
We pulled out the painkillers and loaded H up wondering what effect they may have on top of his grappa and didn't have long to find out.
Riding up ahead towards town I told Kev I'd wait at the next turn figuring that a large road sign saying do not enter did not count as a turn !
Waiting patiently I thought I spied H in the distance riding through the centre of town down the one way road and sure enough after 15 minutes and a phone call I found H had done not only that but had kept going choosing his own turn in the centre of town !
Finally reunited we set about asking directions for the Via Claudia Augusta and were soon climbing a taxing 8km road out donating litres of sweat until we reached the quaint town of San Donato. It was at this point that our German maps showed some alarming facts a) we were off our intended route which was in fact on the other side of the valley and b) the only direct trail was a 7km 4wd track that climbed considerably !
It was interesting that the local who gave us the 4wd trail information was in fact one of the original Snowy Mtn workers having lived in Australia for 15 years before returning to his native homeland !
With considerable grief we descends our 8kms and more back to the bottom of the valley this time climbing 7kms on the other side almost as steep and within a good zip line to San Donato.
After 15kms of climbing H was pretty spent but the climbs and our stops had meant that we had only covered 15 kms forward in 4& 1/2 hours not reassuring when we still had a reasonable distance to coverr.
With some undulating riding we finally had a magic 10 km descent towards the main valley floor that led towards Trento.
We made a fateful late afternoon stop at Nivaledo for a cold drink taking in some cultural Bavarian style dancing before setting off with thunderstorm clouds looming following the Trento bike path signs.
The closer we got to Barco the more ominous the clouds appeared and even the roadies were now pushing to avoid the potential biblical downpour !
Sure enough about 2 kms from our destination we were dumped upon with huge volumes of rain water forcing a hasty retreat to the trees and much cursing !
It soon passed but the damage was done as we cycled into the small village of Barco and set about with difficulty trying to find our unmarked b&b
After asking directions we finally arrived outside close to 7pm to an apartment style buzzer system that no one seemed to answer.
Eventually raising a racket over the background music we were finally admitted but with no restaurants on offer had to race back up to the towns small supermarket before it closed still in our wet gear !
Finally in we settled down for a romantic dinner of cold cuts and some apple custard desert to end a pretty tiring day about 25 kms shy of Trento !
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