Any ideas of lying in were scrapped once the chap at the campsite started scooting around on his ride on lawn mower. At the crack of dawn no less. We were out and about anyway so no great shakes. He was a friendly old boy and at only €12 for the night it's marked on the map for future reference. He even offered us some fresh home grown apples as we left.
Quick hi to everyone back home before I forget. Spoke to JP last night and she's been keeping up to date via 'flea boggles'. Bless x
Left campsite and rode east over the top of Lake Constance. Passed a zeppelin factory in Friedrichshafen. Didn't want to stop after only just setting off so rode on past but I quite fancied popping in for a visit.
We did stop at Lindau though. It's a tiny island at the Austrian end of the lake accessible by bridge. We grabbed a coffee and pulled the maps out to plan our next move. Coffee was served by typically stunning German waitresses. Tall, statuesque, blonde girls. They were friendly and spoke perfect English.
We decided to head south to Davos along the Austrian Swiss border and through Liechtenstein. There are no toll roads in Austria or Switzerland but you need to buy a vignette to use their motorways. Austria isn't too bad - you can buy short term ones but in Switzerland you're stung for a full annual pass. From memory it's about €30 and they fine you heavily if you get caught without one. We only had to go about 20 miles or so before Liechtenstein so decided to use the back roads instead. I challenge anyone to do that same journey without satnav! It was a proper little back street adventure. Occasionally you'd have to take a road that was signposted as motorway but then it peeled off just before the expensive bit into a back road. It was quite a pleasant journey but you certainly couldn't rush it. Austrian drivers are even worst than Swiss though so bring plenty of change for the swear box.
Can't really work Liechtenstein out. Correct me if i'm wrong but it's a tiny principality. You don't really know you've left Switzerland although the currency appears to be the Euro and not the bloody Swiss franc. 90% of people there are tourists. The rest work in tat shops. I also thought it was tax free but the prices suggest otherwise. You can buy wine from the royal vinyards though. Anyway we stopped for quick bite to eat then moved on.
Down past Klosters into Davos where we stopped to swap the map over (for the Italian one - woo hoo!). Got chatting to a bloke stood watching the world go by from his shop doorway. He spends a lot of time around Lake Maggiore (Catherine - he was far too old for you). He said that on Tuesdays there's a ferry from Cannobio to a huge weekly market on the other side of the lake. He also recommended Cannobio as a nice place to visit. Said it's lovely and not expensive. We'd called in briefly last year so chatted about it for a while. He obviously realised he was talking to Alan Whicker, a distinguished gent of international travel. Back in Davos he pointed out a pavement cafe outside a hotel where he said the coffee was excellent. He also said we could dump the bike on the pavement and sit in the sun. It truly was excellent coffee, but at €10 for two it bloody well should of been!
That's Davos though. We had to pick a few things up and you can pretty much double the price of everything in that place.
From Davos we took the Fluelapass down towards St Moritz then over the Bernina Pass into Italy. The Bernina Pass is excellent. It would have been even better if there wasn't road works every few miles. And despite the ridiculous size of my bike it obviously isn't quite big enough to trigger the automatic traffic light sensors to make them turn green. Coming down the pass we caught a local Italian chap in a 330 BMW absolutely caning it. Stuck behind him for a while for entertainment value before passing him near the bottom with a big thumbs up.
I'm constantly reminded by my bitter kid sister of her frozen tent in Livigno last year. Catherine, you'll be delighted to know we gave Livigno a miss and went south into Italy instead this time. I smiled as i watched the temperature rocket as we dropped down from the Bernina Pass. As we passed the border into Tirano it hit 30 degrees. And it was 8pm!
We picked the closest campsite which happened to be in Aprica. There's a mint pass over into Aprica from Tresenda called, appropriately enough, the Aprica Pass.
Just enough time for a pint served by a minxy young Italian barmaid then back to the tent for a late tea with a bottle of wine.
Not a bad day at all. That was 5 countries in one day, on good roads without really pushing it.
203 miles
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