Day09: Matrei - Sterzing (34km)

This is madness? This is Brenner! To cross the pass to Italy, I followed the official pedestrians- and cyclists-route Nr.33, which is also part of another Way of Saint James. It was mostly a regular lane, but for parts of it, I was forced to use the narrow car-road with lots of cars and me dangerously trapped inbetween the guardrails. So I rather prefered to walk on the other side of the guardrails, but there was only little space to the side, where I'd fall 2m down into a stream. I asked an old lady if there is another way and she neglected. Later, when I had another look on the map, I noticed some other possibilities, but still it is crazy. It's not a bad idea to do the part from Steinach to the border line by car.
However I reached Italy - at least officialy - the people still speak german a lot. All of a sudden, there were nice new cyclist-roads and after a long, hard hike on asphalt, I finnaly made it to the lovely city of Sterzing.

Walking along the car-road from Stafflach to Grieß am Brenner.

No matter what you do - there is alway someone more authentic than you.