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

Map and altitude profile

© OpenStreetMap contributors

Powered by WP-GPX Maps

tips for using the map

Run your cursor over the graph to show the elevation, and distance from the start, for any given point on the route. (Note: the altitude graph is not shown where the route is flat).

Click the little icon in the right-hand corner to see the map fullscreen

---

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