Giro 2013

knedlicky
knedlicky Posts: 3,097
edited June 2012 in Pro race
In the Italian press today, were the first hints of the 2013 route – start in Naples with a TT or a TTT, then SE to Puglia (the heel of Italy) then up the country to Longarone, just into the Dolomites north of Venice.

Also included may be a part of the 2013 World Championship route at Florence, the passes the Tre Cime di Lavaredo and the Gavia (which I hope to be riding in late June), and an excursion into France with a stage finish at the top of the Galibier. Then as usual to Milan for the finish.

The route is going to Longarone because next year it’s 50 years since a massive landslide into the nearby dammed lake caused a giant wave 250 m high to come over the wall of the dam and demolish the nearby small town of Longarone and some nearby villages, killing about 2,000 local inhabitants. Below is a picture of the dam wall from the rebuilt town. The wall is about 250 m high, so a wave as high again must have been terrifying.
423px-La_diga_del_Vajont_vista_da_Longarone_18-8-2005.jpg
There is a road which, coming from mountains in the east, goes alongside what remains of the lake, then past the area where the mountain slipped into the lake and then past the dam wall, before descending down the gorge shown in the picture and into Longarone. Looking at the picture, the road is somewhere high up on the left side; I rode it about 12 years ago.
Nowadays the water in the lake remnant is kept at a much lower level, and behind the dam wall there is no lake at all, just the rock and earth which slipped down 50 years ago, so about 50 m height of the dam wall on the "lake" side is now visible.

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