Published on: 12 April 2019 | Last updated: 27 February 2020
Overview
The Etschradroute is deservedly one of Italy’s most popular cycleways. It’s easy to do it as one long fast cruise, but if you can resist the temptation to do it all in one go, and take your time, it will repay your patience.
The cycleway follows the Etsch river (Adige in Italian), taking you through a fertile valley filled with vineyards and apple trees. For thousands of years, this valley has always been a major route between northern and southern Europe, and a meeting point between different cultures. Historically, the Südtirol is part of the Tirol. The majority of people speak German as their first language, and there are strong ties with Austria, but it feels somehow different from the rest of the Tirol. Maybe it’s because it’s on the sunny side of the Alps, but this area definitely has a warm and mellow feel.
Using this guide
This page is the introduction to a series of articles, it is intended to provide an overview of the route, together with information on how to get to and from the start and finishing points. The downloads section at the bottom of the page includes downloads of GPS files as well as maps in PDF format.
The route is described in more detail in the articles in the series. You can navigate between them using the Next/Previous arrows at the end of the main article, or the list of links at the bottom of the page (and in the sidebar if your screen is wide enough).
At a glance
Distance
149 kilometres
Difficulty/terrain
Easy.
Traffic
Almost entirely on traffic-free cycleways.
Surfaces
Mainly on surfaced roads or cycleways — there are two sections aggregate-surfaced cycleway through nature reserves, one is 4-kilometres long and the other is 1.1 kilometres.
Signs
Well signposted
Also known as …
The Italian name for the river is the Adige. The Etschradroute/Adige cycleway is a core part of the Via Claudia Augusta. The southern section is also part of the Ciclovia del Sole which is is in turn part of eurovelo 7.
Options and variations
You can ride the cycleway in either direction. The overall gradient is very gentle with a couple of steeper bits.
The main cycleway follows the river, but you have the option of heading through the wine country around the Kalterersee (Lago di Caldaro).
Connections
The Etschradroute is probably the most well-connected cycleway in Italy. To the north it connects with the Via Claudia Augusta and with the Inn Radweg. It connects with the Brennerradroute just south of Bozen. Further south it continues as the Ciclabile dell’Adige.
Notes
Distance: this guide isn’t divided into daily stages, as people differ in how fast and how far they want to travel each day.
‘Traffic-free’: many cycle routes include sections with roads with restricted access for residents or people working on the adjoining land. You may, very occasionally, encounter an agricultural vehicle like a tractor pulling a trailer of hay, but most of the time there is no motorised traffic. They are often indistinguishable from the cycleways that are legally set aside for the exclusive use of cyclists and pedestrians.
Map and altitude profile
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Distances
Distances | |
---|---|
Nauders to Reschensee | 7 kms |
Reschensee to Glurns (Glorenza) | 22 kms |
Glurns to Naturns (Naturno) | 44 kms |
Naturns to Algund (Lagundo) | 11 kms |
Algund to Meran (Merano) | 4 kms |
Meran to Sigmundskron (Ponte d’Adige) | 27 kms |
Sigmundskron to Salurn (Salorno) | 34 kms |
About this table
The table doesn’t necessarily show the distances from one city centre to the centre of the next town — if a route skirts around a town the distances are measured to the nearest point on the route from the centre.
Getting there … and getting back
By train
The nearest station to the start of the cycleway is at Mals (Malles). Note however that the popularity of the cycle route means that during the summer there are restrictions on bikes on the line between Meran (Merano) and Mals (see the Transport and Services section below for the details).
The nearest mainline station is Bozen (Bolzano) with services to and from Innsbruck and München to the north, and Trento and Bologna to the south.
You could also take the train to Landeck in Austria and from there follow the Innradweg (also part of the Via Claudia Augusta) cycle route, via Martina in Switzerland, to Nauders.
By plane
The closest airport is Innsbruck. München airport is also easy to get to by train — simply get off at München’s Ostbahnhof and take the S-Bahn to the airport.
Heading south, the nearest airport is Verona, followed by Treviso, Venezia and Bologna.
Weather and when to go
April to June and September to October are the ideal months to ride this cycleway. You could also ride it in July and August, but bear in mind that while the higher-altitude parts of the route remain relatively cool, the area around is often one of the hottest parts of Italy in mid-Summer — this shouldn’t present a problem, but think ‘start early, finish early’.
Options and variations
You could just ride the Etschradroute — there’s so much to see and do along the way that you could easily turn it into a leisurely tour for a week or so — but there are also lots of ways you can build it into a more extended tour.
The official starting point for the radroute is on the border with Austria, but you could also start from the resort town of Nauders seven kilometres from the border.
The Etschradroute doesn’t go through Bozen (Bolzano), the main city in the Südtirol, but it’s easy to make a side-trip to visit it or to make an overnight stopover. You could also continue north on the Brennerradroute.
Another option that is well worth considering, if you’re not in a tearing hurry, is to detour off the main route to go through the wine country around Kaltern (Caldaro), as well as the Kalterer See (Lago di Caldaro). There’s a cycleway on the old Überetsch rail line that will take you there, and a cycle route through the vineyards that will bring you back to the main route near to Auer (Ora). The Überetsch radweg starts at Sigmundskron (Ponte d’Adige), but you could also turn off the main route at Algund (Lagundo) and then join the Überetsch cycleway at Sankt Michael (San Michele) near Kaltern (Caldaro).
Connections and options for a longer itinerary
Heading south
Heading south you also have lots of choices. You could continue, following the Adige (as the Etsch is called in the Italian-speaking parts of Italy) as it flows towards Verona, and on from there to the sea south of Venezia (see italy-cycling-guide.info: Adige valley cycleway). The cycleway is predominantly traffic free, and asphalt-surfaced, all the way to the sea.
A very popular option is to turn off near Mori and head for the Lago di Garda on the cycleway that takes you to Torbole on the northern end of the lake (see: italy-cycling-guide.info: Mori-Torbole cycleway).
Heading north
To the north, there’s a short connection on the quiet road between Nauders and Martina in Switzerland, and from there you can pick up the Innradweg. The Innradweg is one of Austria’s premier cycleways; it follows the Inn as it flows to join the Donau (Danube) at Passau.
You could follow the Innradweg south and then climb to the Reschenpass and pick up the Etschradroute. Or going the other way, the network of cycleways along Europe’s rivers means that you have a huge number of possibilities on from Passau.
For more on the Innradweg through the Austrian Tirol, and the routes into München see italy-cycling-guide.info: The Inntal.
Articles in this series
- The Etschradroute: Introduction
- Etschradroute: Part 1: Reschensee to Meran (Merano)
- Etschradroute: Part 2: Meran to Salurn (Salorno)
More information
Places to stay
Services
Transport
Resources
Downloads
Maps to print out or view offline
GPS files
Get in touch
Please get in touch if you find any errors in the information, or if there’s anything, good or bad, that you’d want other cyclists to know.
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