Honda-GO - Lakes and Austrian Alps Tour powered by Edelweiss Bike. SPTCN24056
On this first day the bikes have arrived in Erding. We’re thrilled to be riding brand new Honda motorbikes on this alpine adventure—there’s something incredibly exciting about hitting the road on these fresh, spotless, and powerful top-of-the-line machines, ready to deliver an unforgettable ride. Edelweiss' tourguides Ted and Mark, together with our partners Kizuki and Adrian from MotoTour Japan have held the welcome briefing in both English and Japanese, so everyone is ready to hit the Alp roads! But first.... dinner time! Kanpai 乾杯 !
While parts of eastern Austria are flooding at this moment, the die-hards from Japan decided to brave the weather gods and ride! Leaving Erding towards Wasserburg where we had a short photoshop we faced also some road closures due to the rain. And so further south towards the Chiemsee. Warming up and having a nice lunch was very welcome before we went on the short ferry ride towards King Ludwig's castle at the small island in the middle of the Chiemsee. Back from the castle with a nice horse coach with 2 HP, we went back to the mainland and followed our ride towards Salzburg. In the evening a nice dinner in the oldest Weissbeer brewery of Austria concluded the first riding day.
The weather predictions for today are better, and hopefully we can leave our rain gear packed! When saddling up on our bikes, the first sunrays hit our faces and it looked promising. We left the rushing trafic of Salzburg behind us and changed it for some winding roads down south. We've reached our first coffee stop with a stunning view of the valley. Unfortunately the clouds were relatively low and therefore we were not able to see the mountain tops. The low-hanging clouds, in combination with precipitation made it impossible to visit the Eagles Nest. Snow has thrown a spanner in the works and we went for some additional kilometers on the bikes before stopping for a nice lunch with a good view. Even the clouds dissapeared! Our last stop was at the Salzburger saltmine, where salt has been collected for over 2600 years by the Celtic tribes. Now you can find a museum and this mine is inactive, although the company still collects salt on another location from the same source. We even crossed the border at 100 meters below the surface.
Unfortunately due to the heavy storm in Mid Europe we faced also some problems at this tour with closed passe and roads due to very early snowfall, excessive rain and landslides. So today an alternative road but with two very nice highlights. First leaving Salzburg towards the beautiful place of Bad Ischl, where we visited the Kaiservilla and the good thing was also that the sun came out again! After a relaxed coffee break at a square in the center of town, we followed our way south towards the pittoresk small town of Hallstatt . A nice lunch outside and excellent views: that is what we want! A very nice hotel with a nice dinner concluded this nice day!
As we left Millstat and the lake behind us, our first stop was at the Porsche museum in Gmünd, where Ferdinand Porsche continued his business during the second world war. To protect his business from bombing, he hid his workshop in an old wood workshop. This is also the way how the first Porsche 356 models were created. Metal plates were formed by hand with a wooden hammer and put on a wooden template before putting the car together. When we were heading to Lienz for our lunch stop, we came up with the idea to shoot some videos with the drone. Just before arriving at the twisty roads, clouds appeared and we were not even able to see the traffic ahead of us. The view was only 20 meters! Imagine what that means for the drone... Luckily the elevation meters dropped and the conditions were perfect. As you can read, the weather is disrupting our plans. So why not this time? Today the Großglockner Mountain Pass -our highlight of the tour- is closed due to winter conditions and we have to make a detour over the Felbertauern Straße. It was a good alternative and on the north side of the mountain we even saw some snow. The sweepers were a pleasure to ride to finish our day at the hotel, which also was a car and motorbike museum.
And already the final riding day is there.! Finally with a bright sky and a comfortable temperature with started in the beautiful ski area around Kaprun to our way back north. Along snowy mountain tops, green valleys and excellent views, we stopped for a couple of nice foto's at the Pillersee and short after for a relaxed coffeeshop with awesome cake (also the wasps liked it). Following our way on some nice roads around Bayerischzell we found chef Mark at the Schliersee where he prepared us a picnic which was also our last lunch. Then through the bigger Munich area back to Erding where we had a nice boot beer, followed by a memorable farewell dinner and ceremony by our Japanese customers and staff. Our embedded local Japanese tourguide Kizuki made an excellent tour movie which was well received and enjoyed by everyone. Then a last drink (champagne in this case!) and the tour was over. Thank you Adrian-san, Kizuki-san and Murooka-san for the unforgettable week with this very nice and joyful group. Hope to see you all soon again !