Alps Touring Center - riding in paradise ATC1905

Alps Touring Center - riding in paradise ATC1905

28 Oct 2019
/Marko Bauer
Excitement - that’s the right word to describe the feelings when the group met in Seefeld! The beautiful bikes were lined up, a great mix of German, Italian and Japanese designs. Day 1: King Ludwig's Palace The weather was not exactly the way you want it on your first riding day in Europe - but a bit of rain has to be expected over here. We picked the easy route today, which gave us enough time to visit Bavarian King Ludwig's famous palace Linderhof. And the day still had enough curvy roads for us to get used to our new motorcycles and to enjoy our excursion to Austria's northern neighbor, Germany. Day 2: Hahntennjoch & Kühtai Blue skies greeted us today - just what we needed for the roads we had planned today. Namlos valley, Hahntennjoch and Kühtai were on our agenda today. Lots of twisty mountain roads and switchbacks took us up to more than 6,000 feet - great practice for tomorrow! Day 3: Stelvio Pass, Italy One of the tour's big highlights was planned for today: the Stelvio Pass. 48 switchbacks take you up to 9,000 feet - it is one of these things a motorcyclist must have done once in his lifetime. The route back led us through Switzerland, county #4 on this tour! Day 4: Timmelsjoch, Italy Yesterday was a perfect day - and today was just as great! We started out with a ride through Austria's great ski area, Sölden. Sölden is also the gateway to the Timmelsjoch, an 8,000ft Pass leading into Italy. On top of the pass is a fairly new and very impressive motorcycle museum - probably one of the highest worldwide! Down in Italy, we had lunch on Andreas Hofer's terrace in wonderful sunshine. Mr. Hofer is not an Italian MotoGP racer, but a famous Tyrolean resistance fighter... Jaufenpass and Brennerpass took us back to Austria - we could have spent some more time in Italy...maybe on our next motorcycle tour in the Alps! Day 5: Inn Valley & Achensee Time is flying, as usual on Edelweiss tours. The last riding day has arrived - and the clouds are back. The low clouds made the route decision easy - no high passes for today, instead culture and sightseeing and a bit of shopping. We visited the Olympic bob sled track, the historic city of Hall and finally stopped at the beautiful Achensee. And then we were back at our hotel in Seefeld for the last time...just when the first drops of rain hit the ground. A great tour, with wonderful people - thanks everybody for the fun, the talks, the laughs,...