Day 11
Brienz, Switzerland to Airolo, Switzerland
It’s a little bit warmer this morning, especially for Switzerland. We are hearing wind of a “dangerous heat wave” coming to southern Europe. I assure you, this south Louisiana boy ain’t worried about that.
We gear up at the KSU time and taxi out of Brienz ready to ride. There was lots of chatter on the intercom about how much fun the past 2 days were enjoying the beauty of Switzerland. But our fearless leader Greg re-focuses us and promises new and exciting adventures just around the corner.
Which corner is anyone’s guess – I suppose at any point, we can just …. pick one.
These roads in Switzerland are quite simply the finest riding I have ever experienced. They are all impeccably maintained with nary a crack in the pavement. I’m having fantastic fun leaning the bike in these curves.
Lunch at the top of some mountain pass.
And then…. rinse, lather, repeat.
Let me make a statement regarding the Alpine Mountain Passes. According to Google, who knows everything (LOL), there are 222 primary mapped paved mountain passes in the Alpine Mountain Range of Europe. We tried to the best of our ability to document each one we crossed over the month of our travel. I’m quite certain that we missed documenting one or two along the way. But for posterity’s sake, we rode over sixty-four (64) documented mountain passes. During the rest of this ride report, when I am able to discern it from the pictures, I will mention their names. And at the end of the report, I’ll list all of the passes in random order for the benefit of anyone planning a ride to the Alps.
But the short version is, while I have my favorites, they were ALL wonderful.
Some of the passes still utilized the old cobble stones for the roadway. Extra caution was called for there.
It’s just one twisty ribbon of roadway after another….
In the afternoon, we ran up Grimsel Pass in the sunshine with a little bit of traffic to deal with. But it’s easy – there are plenty of places to pass, and mostly, these people just move over for us. We get to the top and I remember it being exactly 50 degrees F and a little windy – that cool air felt really nice running through my jacket vents.
We start heading down and soon realize that a group of late model Lotus sports cars were behind us, and they were feeling as frisky as we were. We had great fun passing 5 or more cars at the same time on some of the more open areas. On that particular run, I kind of wished I had my FJR1300 with me. But the Africa Twin is doing just fine and I’m enjoying the ride very much.
Greg and Bryan found a set of rooms with a common bathroom in the town of Airolo, Switzerland. This a great place centrally located around some of the finest riding passes in the Alps. So we booked 3 nights at this place. They have a restaurant in the hotel, and the pizza there is very good.
But the hit of the show was dessert. This is Chocolate Panna Cotta with homemade cream, and it was scrumptious.
We had a lot of fun cutting up with the waitress at that dinner, who was the daughter of the hotelier. She was cute (in a non-creepy way) and she played along with us.
It was only 225 kilometers, but we made big (s)miles today.
Brienz, Switzerland to Airolo, Switzerland
It’s a little bit warmer this morning, especially for Switzerland. We are hearing wind of a “dangerous heat wave” coming to southern Europe. I assure you, this south Louisiana boy ain’t worried about that.
We gear up at the KSU time and taxi out of Brienz ready to ride. There was lots of chatter on the intercom about how much fun the past 2 days were enjoying the beauty of Switzerland. But our fearless leader Greg re-focuses us and promises new and exciting adventures just around the corner.
Which corner is anyone’s guess – I suppose at any point, we can just …. pick one.
These roads in Switzerland are quite simply the finest riding I have ever experienced. They are all impeccably maintained with nary a crack in the pavement. I’m having fantastic fun leaning the bike in these curves.
Lunch at the top of some mountain pass.
And then…. rinse, lather, repeat.
Let me make a statement regarding the Alpine Mountain Passes. According to Google, who knows everything (LOL), there are 222 primary mapped paved mountain passes in the Alpine Mountain Range of Europe. We tried to the best of our ability to document each one we crossed over the month of our travel. I’m quite certain that we missed documenting one or two along the way. But for posterity’s sake, we rode over sixty-four (64) documented mountain passes. During the rest of this ride report, when I am able to discern it from the pictures, I will mention their names. And at the end of the report, I’ll list all of the passes in random order for the benefit of anyone planning a ride to the Alps.
But the short version is, while I have my favorites, they were ALL wonderful.
Some of the passes still utilized the old cobble stones for the roadway. Extra caution was called for there.
It’s just one twisty ribbon of roadway after another….
In the afternoon, we ran up Grimsel Pass in the sunshine with a little bit of traffic to deal with. But it’s easy – there are plenty of places to pass, and mostly, these people just move over for us. We get to the top and I remember it being exactly 50 degrees F and a little windy – that cool air felt really nice running through my jacket vents.
We start heading down and soon realize that a group of late model Lotus sports cars were behind us, and they were feeling as frisky as we were. We had great fun passing 5 or more cars at the same time on some of the more open areas. On that particular run, I kind of wished I had my FJR1300 with me. But the Africa Twin is doing just fine and I’m enjoying the ride very much.
Greg and Bryan found a set of rooms with a common bathroom in the town of Airolo, Switzerland. This a great place centrally located around some of the finest riding passes in the Alps. So we booked 3 nights at this place. They have a restaurant in the hotel, and the pizza there is very good.
But the hit of the show was dessert. This is Chocolate Panna Cotta with homemade cream, and it was scrumptious.
We had a lot of fun cutting up with the waitress at that dinner, who was the daughter of the hotelier. She was cute (in a non-creepy way) and she played along with us.
It was only 225 kilometers, but we made big (s)miles today.
