St Leonhard in Passeier lies in the Passeier valley of South Tyrol, where the river Passer tumbles down from the high Alps toward Merano through a corridor of apple orchards, steep meadows and farms that cling to terraces. The village is small and wooden-balconied, with a church tower and a handful of inns, and the people speak German with a Tyrolean twang, though the signs are Italian as well, as it is San Leonardo in Passiria on the map. The valley belongs to Italy, but its heart is Tyrolean, a fact that locals do not forget.
The great local hero is Andreas Hofer, born in 1767 at the Sandhof, an inn a short distance from the village. An innkeeper and cattle dealer, he led the Tyrolean uprising of 1809 against the Bavarian and French armies, winning several battles on the Bergisel above Innsbruck before the cause collapsed. He was betrayed, captured and shot in Mantua in 1810, and became a symbol of Tyrolean freedom. A museum at the Sandhof tells his story, and his name appears on pubs, statues and songs across the region.
For riders, St Leonhard is the foot of two notable passes. Southward, the road leads to Merano, a spa town with palm trees and a mild climate, but northward it climbs to Moos, then the Timmelsjoch, at about twenty-four hundred and seventy metres, crossing into Austria's Ötztal. The Timmelsjoch is a toll road, with a good surface, long ramps and hairpins that open to wide views of rock and snowfields, and a museum of the old mountain trade at the top. It is closed by snow from late autumn to late spring. The Jaufenpass, around two thousand metres, links the valley with Vipiteno, with a smooth rhythm of bends through spruce forest.
Fuel is easy to find in the larger villages of the valley, and Merano and Vipiteno are the main towns. The weather in the Alps changes fast, with cold and fog at the top even in July, so pack a warm layer. The best months are June to September. Local food, such as speck, dumplings and apple strudel, makes a sound reward at an inn after the ride.