Munich to Venice by Bike — Across the Alps

The Plan, and the Twist

The plan was clean on paper. Fly Phoenix → Detroit → Munich; pick up rental touring bikes that a bike-tour company would deliver to us in Munich; and ride south across the Alps to Venice over about nine days, June 11 to 19. The same company would carry our non-cycling luggage ahead to Venice, where we'd hand back the bikes, catch a train to Florence, and meet my wife and Doug's girlfriend. Simple.

Then, sitting in the airport lounge in Detroit waiting on our overnight flight to Munich, an email landed from the rental company.

📧 From our bike rental company I'm writing to you from Tuscia, a little region 850 km away from you. I'm here with the van and your bike. Unfortunately I encountered some serious problem with the engine of the van… I also tried to rent a van but the few companies are all fully booked. It's impossible for me to deliver your bike and those of the other customers… Definitely one possibility is to buy used bicycles in a shop in the city and resell them when you arrive in Venice. I am obliged to cancel your rental. I will refund your deposit. I am sorry.

So there we were, boarding an overnight flight to a continent where every bike shop was already closed for the night, with no bikes waiting on the other end. What followed was the most creative problem-solving of any trip I've done — and it's why Day 1 doesn't start in Munich at all.

📓 The story so far: Day 1 — the scramble and the ride to Bad Tölz — is written up in full below, and the first three days are drawn on the map. The rest of the ride south to Venice is being added as I write it up.

Jump to Route Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

🗺️ The Route — Days 1 to 3

Day 1 · Garmisch → Bad Tölz Day 2 · Bad Tölz → the Achensee Day 3 · Achensee → Innsbruck

Interactive route built from our GPS tracks. Drag to pan, use +/− to zoom. Day 3 combines two recorded files (a short unrecorded gap in the middle).

Day by Day

🚴 Riding Day Saturday, June 11, 2022 ☀️

Warm & clear · jet-lagged

Day 1 — Garmisch to Bad Tölz

38.9 miles · ~1,520 ft climbed · Germany · the ride that almost wasn't

The Trip That Almost Wasn't

Late in the day in Europe meant nothing was open — we couldn't reach a single business to sort out bikes. We chased option after option from the airport lounge. The break came from a tour-company owner I'd met once at an event, who happened to be visiting the US: she passed along the bike shop she used in Garmisch-Partenkirchen — bikeverleih.de — since we couldn't turn up anything in Munich. I messaged them our whole predicament that night. It wasn't until we landed in Munich the next morning and I got them on the phone that I could confirm it: yes, they could rent us bikes.

Now we just had to get to Garmisch. The train was out — just weeks earlier a tragic derailment on the Munich–Garmisch line had killed five people and injured dozens. Luckily FlixBus was running, so we booked a bus to the bike shop and settled in to wait at the airport. Sometimes a trip hands you a problem to solve; this one demanded genuine creativity before we'd even turned a pedal.

Doug beside a vintage Pratt & Whitney radial engine at Munich Airport — Doug killing time at Munich Airport, next to a vintage Pratt & Whitney radial engine, while we waited on our FlixBus to Garmisch.

A Forced Start in Garmisch

If we had to start somewhere other than Munich, we could have done a lot worse. Garmisch-Partenkirchen is stunning — an alpine resort town tucked beneath the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak, and host of the 1936 Winter Olympics. We rolled our rental bikes through cobblestone streets lined with the region's signature Lüftlmalerei — the elaborate frescoes painted right onto the house facades — with the Wetterstein peaks standing over the rooftops. For a start line we hadn't planned on 24 hours earlier, it was hard to complain.

Cobblestone street in Garmisch with painted houses and mountains — Garmisch's cobblestone streets, a church spire, and the mountains rising right behind town.

Frescoed Lüftlmalerei facades on Garmisch's main street — Frescoed *Lüftlmalerei* facades along the main street — the Bavarian Alps at their most postcard.

North, of All Directions

Here's the twist in the twist: because our hotel that first night was already booked up in Bad Tölz, and Bad Tölz sits north of Garmisch, our Munich-to-Venice ride actually began by heading the wrong way — north — before we could ever turn south for Italy. So off we went, two jet-lagged Arizonans on unfamiliar rental bikes, pointing away from Venice on Day 1.

Selfie starting the ride in Garmisch, Doug behind on his bike — Rolling out of Garmisch — Doug just behind. Whatever else happened, we were finally on bikes.

The riding was gentle and gorgeous to start — miles of flat, car-free path tracing the Loisach, its glacier-fed water a startling turquoise, with the Karwendel range filling the sky. Eventually the path handed us over to some roads and the first real hills of the trip. Along the way we passed a signpost for the Jakobsweg — the German branch of the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James. Fittingly, a few years earlier Doug and I had done our own Camino across Spain, so the scallop-shell waymark felt like an old friend.

Riding the car-free path along the turquoise Loisach river — Easy, car-free miles along the turquoise Loisach to start the day.

Doug with his loaded touring bike on a bridge over the Loisach, Karwendel peaks behind — Doug and his loaded bike on a bridge over the Loisach, the Karwendel range behind.

Mike beside a Jakobsweg (Way of St. James) cycle signpost near Bichl — A *Jakobsweg* signpost near Bichl — the Way of St. James, scallop shell and all.

Doug crossing a small bridge past a Loisach river sign, alpine foothills ahead — Rolling on toward Bad Tölz, foothills gathering ahead.

Bad Tölz — and, of All Things, Mexican

Jet-lagged and mentally fried from a full day of solving our bike-rental crisis and re-drawing the route, we were more than happy to reach Bad Tölz as the light went. We landed at the Hotel Kolberbräu, a wonderfully bike-friendly spot that tucked our bikes into a secure underground garage alongside those of an organized tour group. Hungry, we found one of the few restaurants still open — a Mexican restaurant, of all things — and ate outside by the Isar. There's a particular kind of funny in flying from Phoenix, where Mexican food is on every corner, all the way to Bavaria… to eat Mexican. We slept hard.

🚲 One problem still hanging over us: starting in Garmisch instead of Munich meant our bikes — and the non-cycling luggage the shop kindly agreed to store — were now in the wrong country from where we'd finish. Somehow we'd have to get everything back from Venice to Garmisch at the end: shuttle services were an option, and the shop gave us some contacts. But that was a week away. Doug and I figured we had time to figure it out. First, we had the Alps to cross.

🚴 Riding Day Sunday, June 12, 2022

Day 2 — Bad Tölz to the Achensee

43.1 miles · ~3,490 ft climbed · Germany → Austria · the big climbing day

✍️ Full write-up coming soon — but the elevation profile tells the story: Day 2 was the big one — the most climbing of the trip so far, roughly 3,500 feet — as we finally turned south, crossed from Germany into Austria, and worked our way up toward the Achensee in the Tyrol.

🚴 Riding Day Monday, June 13, 2022

Day 3 — Achensee to Innsbruck

34.1 miles · net ~1,170 ft descent · Austria · down the Inn valley

✍️ Full write-up coming soon — a shorter day descending toward Innsbruck, the Tyrolean capital and the gateway to the Brenner Pass into Italy. (This day's track is stitched from two recorded files, so the map shows one short unrecorded gap.)

🇮🇹 From Innsbruck the ride climbed over the Brenner Pass into Italy and wound down through the Dolomites to Venice — those days, and the tale of getting our bikes back from Venice to Garmisch, are still to come. Check back.