Wetterstein, Hohe Munde, Rietzer Grieskogel - with green meadows and singing cow bells – a magnificent landscape to breathe into. We cycle at 1000 m above sea level through larch forests and dreamy hamlets. Crystal clear air and a majestic panorama surround us. It is the perfect place for a holiday and for leaving your everyday life behind.

We cycle down into the Gurgl valley via the Holzleitensattel and continue our journey south along the river Gurgl. The valley was excavated in the ice age by a side arm of the Inn Valley glacier. Small hay barns on the valley floor are very characteristic for this region. This characteristic came to be due to land allocations in case of inheritance succession, to equally cater for all heirs. This seems to have hindered intensive cultivation with machines. Hence agriculture has remained largely natural.

Prior to the creation of the reservoir lake, the Reschenpass featured three lakes. Expropriations for this project already began under the Fascist government in 1940-41. A total of 163 houses and 523 hectares of fertile soil, including the village Graun and a large part of the village Reschen, drowned in the new lake. Despite great protests from the population, the project could no longer be stopped. Today we still see the listed church steeple of Graun bizarrely peeking out of the lake.

With about 800 inhabitants, Glurns is Italy’s smallest city. Located on the old salt trade route, the town was very important during the 14th and 15th century. During the Engadin War between the Habsburg army and the Swiss farmers in 1499, the town was totally destroyed. The inhabitants rebuilt their hometown in the 16th century surrounding it with a new 10 m (30 ft.) high wall. It seems Glurns has been sleeping since that time and, hence, preserved its medieval character.

With its leafy boulevards and the warm and sunny microclimate, Merano feels more Italian than the rest of South Tyrol. The area has been settled for 5,000 years, the Romans came to stay for a few hundred years, and in 857 "Mairania" was first mentioned in a document. The Counts of Tyrol, who had their castle on a nearby hill, elevated Meran to the status of a city in 1317 and made it the capital of their County of Tyrol. But over the centuries, Merano lost its importance piece by piece and sank into insignificance until its potential as a spa town was discovered in 1836. Prior to WWI, Merano became a popular meeting point for European nobility and welcomed around 1 million guests annually. Today, no visitor to South Tyrol can bypass the classical beauty of Merano. Take a stroll up and down the "Kurpromenade", past the Art Nouveau bathhouse and through the cobblestone alleyways, and enjoy some ice cream or a cappuccino. Or both.

In the Northern region of the Ortler is a 500-kilometer-wide marble vein called the "white gold" of Vinschgau. Already in ancient times the hard, resistant Laas marble was used for the milestones of the Via Claudia Augusta. In modern times it is a popular material for church building and sculpture. The high-quality natural building material is appreciated for prestige buildings. For example, for the subway station at Ground Zero.

The sanctuary of San Romedio is one of the most interesting medieval religious buildings in the Alps. It is located in Trentino province, nestled in the hills east of Lago di Santa Giustina on a 70 meter (230 ft) limestone cliff. Romedius, son and heir of a rich Bavarian family, went on a pilgrimage to Rome and didn't return home but became a hermit in the Non valley. Around the year 1,000 a chapel was erected over his tomb and over the next 900 years four more chapels and several other buildings were added, so different styles from different eras are visible today. The last chapel was consecrated as late as 1923. Romedio is the patron saint of pilgrims and hikers; the monastery and his tomb are a pilgrimage site, visited by more than 200,000 pilgrims every year.

Monte Baldo is a 30 km long ridge between the Adige valley and Lake Garda and has no distinguished summit. Monte Baldo is a nunatak, a mountain that has always protruded from the ice sheet throughout the ice ages. It was therefore a refuge for plants and animals that have survived there as relicts until today or have formed new species as a result of the isolation. The view from up there down to Lake Garda is unique and so is the road down into the valley.