A hotel was definitely the right choice last night. There had obviously been plenty of rain overnight and it continued now, although clear skies were breaking through.
Louby hooked into the free hotel wifi and checked out some weather forecasts. It was the kind of predictions that convinced Noah to build an ark. Europe is forecast thunderstorms for the foreseeable future. Unsure of the best option, we unanimously agreed the only sensible choice was to leave Switzerland. You can usually ride out and recover from storms in southern France and Italy. Switzerland, despite it's amazing beauty, is cold and miserable when it's wet.
There are very few bad options for routes out of St Moritz. The Stelvio pass was a possibility today, and the skies looked promising to the east, but we didn't want to push our luck.
So we headed south east over the bernina pass towards Italy. The road up was good, but the weather and road down was much better. Still bloody cold though. My navigator had her vest of toastiness cranked up to max.
It was a slower journey down than it had to be. Lots of spectacular photo opportunities and brief pit stops to admire (yet more) pretty cows.
Running on fumes so stopped for fuel on the Swiss side of the border and treated the tractor to a big glug of oil. It's taken a right hammering over the last few days and had earned every last drop.
As we passed into Italy the weather and temperature lifted significantly. We both got that lovely warm glow that Italy gives you after riding through Switzerland. The mountains are lush, rather than inhospitable, and the driving noticeably improves. Everyone drives with utter conviction. We were both grinning with delight.
Rode north east over the tonale pass. Everytime i ride this pass there's roadworks and today was no exception. We got held up just after the pass by some logging work. Filtered to the front of the queue and were eventually joined by a huge group of sports bikes. On green we gave the tractor a big fistful of beans and by Cles we'd lost all but three of them.
I've ridden various routes over to Garda, bur today we chanced upon a new one. Cles to Denno, where we stopped for a quick coffee and a breather, then the S421 via molveno and it's rather pretty lake, to Ponte Arche. Then stuck on the S421 down to Riva. All in all, a great run. The entire road was excellent in the main but the few imperfections were huge mine craters, and they gave me a potty mouth.
I bloody well love Lake Garda. We camped at the usual spot in Malcesine. It's quiet - just us and two other couples from what we can tell. Our young Austrian neighbours were originally camping but said the weather had been so stormy that they hired a bungalow. Not a good omen, but we'll brave it.
The weather tonight was brilliant. We sat on the shore with our feet dipped in the lake and had a long night of putting the world to rights and polishing off three bottles of wine, including a very nice fizz that we found chilling in the fridge on reception. We checked in with the family and unfortunately received some bad news from back home. So we raised more than one glass to JP and out thoughts are with the family while we can't be.
x
158 miles
Louby hooked into the free hotel wifi and checked out some weather forecasts. It was the kind of predictions that convinced Noah to build an ark. Europe is forecast thunderstorms for the foreseeable future. Unsure of the best option, we unanimously agreed the only sensible choice was to leave Switzerland. You can usually ride out and recover from storms in southern France and Italy. Switzerland, despite it's amazing beauty, is cold and miserable when it's wet.
There are very few bad options for routes out of St Moritz. The Stelvio pass was a possibility today, and the skies looked promising to the east, but we didn't want to push our luck.
So we headed south east over the bernina pass towards Italy. The road up was good, but the weather and road down was much better. Still bloody cold though. My navigator had her vest of toastiness cranked up to max.
It was a slower journey down than it had to be. Lots of spectacular photo opportunities and brief pit stops to admire (yet more) pretty cows.
Running on fumes so stopped for fuel on the Swiss side of the border and treated the tractor to a big glug of oil. It's taken a right hammering over the last few days and had earned every last drop.
As we passed into Italy the weather and temperature lifted significantly. We both got that lovely warm glow that Italy gives you after riding through Switzerland. The mountains are lush, rather than inhospitable, and the driving noticeably improves. Everyone drives with utter conviction. We were both grinning with delight.
Rode north east over the tonale pass. Everytime i ride this pass there's roadworks and today was no exception. We got held up just after the pass by some logging work. Filtered to the front of the queue and were eventually joined by a huge group of sports bikes. On green we gave the tractor a big fistful of beans and by Cles we'd lost all but three of them.
I've ridden various routes over to Garda, bur today we chanced upon a new one. Cles to Denno, where we stopped for a quick coffee and a breather, then the S421 via molveno and it's rather pretty lake, to Ponte Arche. Then stuck on the S421 down to Riva. All in all, a great run. The entire road was excellent in the main but the few imperfections were huge mine craters, and they gave me a potty mouth.
I bloody well love Lake Garda. We camped at the usual spot in Malcesine. It's quiet - just us and two other couples from what we can tell. Our young Austrian neighbours were originally camping but said the weather had been so stormy that they hired a bungalow. Not a good omen, but we'll brave it.
The weather tonight was brilliant. We sat on the shore with our feet dipped in the lake and had a long night of putting the world to rights and polishing off three bottles of wine, including a very nice fizz that we found chilling in the fridge on reception. We checked in with the family and unfortunately received some bad news from back home. So we raised more than one glass to JP and out thoughts are with the family while we can't be.
x
158 miles
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