Destination Yamaha - Alps & Dolomites (4YS250A)

Our first day of riding is now behind us, and it was a day full of highlights that couldn't have been better. We leave Seefeld after a hearty breakfast and ride straight down into the Inn Valley, from where we set off for Kühtai. The road takes us up to our first pass of this tour and for the first time we are at an altitude of over 2,000 meters. There will be many more passes like this on this tour. We then continue through the Ötztal valley to the Timmelsjoch, where we will cross the border into Italy. But of course, we stopped at the motorcycle museum there first. Once in Italy, we tackle the Jaufen Pass and the Penserjoch before heading to Bolzano, where we will spend the next two nights. We have had a great day and are already looking forward to what the next few days will bring.

We had a great day yesterday with lots of fantastic motorcycle routes. Today we're heading to the Dolomites, the ultimate motorcycle paradise. We were quite lucky, as the weather forecast had actually predicted rain all day today, but to our surprise it was dry most of the time and sometimes the sun even came out. After lunch, it did rain a little, so we cut the day short and returned to the hotel a little earlier today to relax a bit.

After yesterday's cool and rainy weather, today we are blessed with sunshine and beautiful weather all day long. This is perfect timing, as today's route includes several riding highlights. We leave Bolzano in the morning and head straight west. After a few minutes, we reach the Mendel Pass, a fantastic motorcycle route that couldn't be better designed for motorcyclists. Perfect asphalt and fantastic, sweeping curves – what more could you want? Once we reach the top of the pass, we take a short detour through the forest to Monte Penegal and take one last look back at Bolzano. We then continue west over the Tonale Pass to the Gavia Pass, which at over 2600 m will be one of the highest points on this tour. At around 4 p.m., we reach our today's destination, Livigno, just in time to do some extensive shopping, which is ideal as Livigno is a duty-free zone.

A motorcycle tour of the Alps is just not complete without a visit to Switzerland, which is why our route took us there today. After leaving Livigno heading west, we crossed the border and headed for our first highlight of the day, the Bernina Pass. We then made a short detour to St. Moritz to enjoy the view of the lake of the same name. The Albula Pass was another highlight on the itinerary. Refreshed by our coffee, we then continued on to Davos for our lunch stop with a great view of the lake. There's no better way to enjoy your lunch. To round off the day, we drove over the Flüela and Ofen Passes before crossing the border back into Italy and returning to Livigno. All in all, we conquered four fantastic passes in Switzerland today, so the trip was definitely worth it. Before we leave Italy again tomorrow and make our way back to Austria, we're treating ourselves to a really delicious pizza tonight.

Today is already our last day of riding on this tour, and as always, this week has gone by way too fast. But at least we still had one absolute highlight on our agenda for today. After leaving Livigno in the morning, we headed straight for the famous and also notorious Stelvio Pass, probably the most famous road in the Alps. As we were relatively early and the weather wasn't the best either, there wasn't much traffic and we were able to really enjoy the many hairpin bends up and down the pass. At lunchtime, we stopped in Glurns, a medieval town that has even preserved its city walls. We then crossed the border into Austria via the Reschen Pass, where we visited the new Edelweiss headquarters in Mieming, bringing our tour to an end. We had five fantastic days on our motorcycles and had a lot of fun. I hope to see you again soon on another tour. Daniel