In Trento: the Rovereto ride

June 6, 2023

The day gets an early start with Rachael and I walking over to the cafe she scoped out when doing the laundry yesterday. It opens at 6:30, and we’re there not long after that. We place our order: a pastry and a pair of small sandwiches for Rachael (she’ll save one to take on her hike today), and a pain chocolate and what I expect will be a nocciola croissant. As well as the first round of americanos, of course. There’s some confusion over my croissant though, which I ordered after looking at a pile of croissants through the storefront window with a list of flavors across the top which I assumed were the filling options.

She looked uncertain about my croissant order though, and asked me twice. When she came to the table with our orders I was taken aback to see that my expected croissant had shape-shifted into. Small bowl of nocciola ice cream with a cookie wafer stuck on top. A quaint breakfast to start the day with, and another lifetime first experience for me as far as I can recall.

I really like Trento. It’s in a spectacular setting surrounded by many enticing options for biking and hiking and filled with eye catching architecture. It’s another town that we’d be happy to come back as an extended base someday, but today we’re just giving it a quick once-over, mostly consisting of a look at the exceptional structures in or near the cathedral. I took a fair number of photos last night after dinner and on the way back to the room after breakfast, but the lighting was suboptimal both times so I won’t include them now. Maybe I’ll come back and add a photo dump at some point to remind us to come back, but instead I want to remember my day ride south along the river to Rovereto and back; and I’m sure Rachael will want to put up a photo album of her hike into the hills just east of town when she gets around to assembling it.

Rovereto is a significant town fifteen miles downriver from Trento. I’ve never really noticed it before planning our ride north from Peschiera, when I looked into it as a potential overnight. It wasn’t quite in the right spot for that, but in reading about it I could see that it was likely to be worth a visit. It looked just the right distance for a day ride - an easy ride south along the Adige, enough time to poke around Rovereto, and an easy ride back. Enough of an outing to earn my dinner, and a short enough one to get me back before the threatened thunderstorms materialized in midafternoon.

The ride south was about as expected - an easy cruise along a highest quality bike path, immersed in a scenic landscape of river scenes, limestone cliffs, and vineyards. What’s not to like? It would have been an excellent ride even without the surprise encounter with Suzanne and Janos a few miles north of Rovereto, biking in from Riva about two hours earlier than expected. It had crossed my mind that I might cross paths with them, but I didn’t really expect it and assumed we’d meet up at our hotel around dinner time.

Looking back at Trento. Within about two miles I’m out of town cycling on a beautiful, stress-free bike path. There are still residual clouds from last night’s rain, but the weather will improve all day long.

Sheep drive! There must be near a thousand sheep and goats in this long procession making its way along the river.

The Adige is really swollen and muddy now. I should go back to look at photos from when we’ve been here in autumn, but I don’t remember it looking like this.

The smooth, excellently maintained Adige bike path is terrific, offering a great ride for little effort.

Because we started in the south and worked our way north this spring, we’ve been surrounded by poppies for the last two months.

The stylish cycle bridge across the Adige at Nomi. The investment in cycling infrastructure along this river is so impressive.

Actually the possibility of running into Suzanne and Janos didn’t occur to me when planning this ride. I drew up this route and an alternate option north to Bolzano instead, and really only came this way because I’d gotten curious about Rovereto. As I was biking though I remembered they’d probably be coming in this way today and started keeping an eye out for them just in case. Sure enough, just north of Rovereto I see them rounding the bend ahead and holler out to them. They stop, lean their bikes against the side of the road (one of the few spots where the route is on roads rather than a separate bike path), and roadside hugs and greetings are exchanged. We don’t talk long though - they’re in a hurry to get to their room, I still want to see Rovereto, and it’s actually not quite safe because every so often a car or small truck will come by and crowd us on the narrow road.

Later, over dinner Suzanne tells us about her narrow escape during this brief encounter. If I remember the story right, she put her glasses on the back of her bike when they hastily stopped, and later discovered they’d fallen on the road. They’re ones she needs and couldn’t easily replace, and she felt lucky that one of those passing cars hadn’t crushed them in the meantime.

It wasn’t until writing up this narrative that I remembered this story and it occurred to me that I might have evidence. I went back to look through other photos I’d taken, and sure enough there they were.

Not crushed! Looks like she’s lucky to have not crushed them herself, really.

Rovereto disappointed me at first, because it didn’t really seem to have a historical center or much of obvious interest. It just took me awhile to locate it though, and once I did I thoroughly enjoyed my leisurely tour. Because it’s after midnight though and Rachael wants to be down for breakfast at the opening bell, I’m going to cut this short and just dump in the photos. Later I’ll come back and spend more time on them, of course.

Palazzo del Bene, a 15th century residence built in the Venetian Renaissance style. Now a bank.

Palazzo del Bene. There’s a panel like this for each mont of the year.

This and the following two images are different perspectives on the same building. This is the vertical view.

Well, that took longer than I intended, and now I’m really out of time. There’s just enough to drop in a few last photos from the ride back to Trento, and of our dinner outing with Janos and Suzanne. Seems like there should be more to say about meeting up with them again, but fortunately we’ve still got four more days together. There’s still time.

I must have stopped fifteen times for photos of Castel Beseno on the way down to Rovereto and back.

The rains never did come. Beautiful all day. I should have gotten out in the afternoon to take some photos of town while the sun was out, but didn’t.

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Ride stats today: 34 miles, 1,100’; for the tour: 1,740 miles, 70,500’

Today's ride: 34 miles (55 km)
Total: 1,738 miles (2,797 km)

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Zelda MekIf you have time, go north of Trento on Adige bike path about 26k to the Bicigrill Faedo. Ideal break point on way to/from Bolzano. Cake, coffee, and a place to pause cannot be beat.
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10 months ago

Keith Adams"She looked uncertain about my croissant order though, and asked me twice. When she came to the table with our orders I was taken aback to see that my expected croissant had shape-shifted into. Small bowl of nocciola ice cream with a cookie wafer stuck on top. A quaint breakfast to start the day with, and another lifetime first experience for me as far as I can recall."

That's why, when confronted with an uncertain situation, I favor the point-and-gesticulate method.
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10 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Keith AdamsMy preferred technique also, and the one I deployed in this instance. I pointed at the pile of croissants, named nocciola as my choice, and got gelato instead.
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10 months ago