Ultimate Alps Special Tour CUA150A - Day 8 Last Day
08 Oct 2015
Day 8:
Although everyone was a little sad this morning that the last day of the tour had arrived we soon cheered up while climbing the beautiful hills above Bolzano on the way back to Mieming. After our final views looking back over the city we continued north to carve up the twisty roads of Penserjoch, Jaufenpass, Timmelsjoch, and Kühtai. It was another great day on the passes, then while descending towards our final destination we were treated with a rainbow.. A wonderful farewell after a memorable week exploring the Ultimate Alps!
Day 7:
It is very hard to find the right words for a day like this: incredible, glorious, perfect, once-in-a-lifetime, priceless,... Nothing can describe what we experienced today: A day in the Dolomites, with almost no traffic, clear-blue skies and roads that were made with motorcycles in mind. We rode all day, 11 passes in total, had wonderful stops on the top to of the mountain passes, perfectly made Italian coffee,...
This was one of the days that will always stick out in your motorcycle memories. The following pictures are just a little impression - you cannot capture this day on a memory card!
The day ended with great pizza (and few scoops of ice cream) in Bozens historic old town...what a day!
Day 6:
Today, after a bit of a sleep in on our rest day, we headed up into the hills above Bolzano for an afternoon ride. Everyone enjoyed the great roads and the beautiful scenery despite a few rain showers to make conditions a little challenging.. A memorable day!
Day 5:
After four days in beautiful Switzerland, it is time to discover another country: Italy! And it was as always - as soon as you cross the Italian border, the weather gets (a little) better, the Cappuccino tastes a little better and the roads remain just as twisty!
We had a wonderful ride up on Passo Aprica and then tried to reach the top of Gavia Pass, but it was closed for snow. So we had a wonderful Italian lunch, including Tagliatelle with deer sauce, and then contiuned to Tonale Pass.
Being in Italy, we also had to try our first taste of Gelato - as good as expected!
Now we have two days in Bolzano ahead of us - there'll be something to do for everybody and every taste!
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Day 3:
The mountains are calling - and here we come. Three big passes were on our way today - Susten, Gotthard and Nufenen. But the day started with a scenic ride around Lake Lucerne, which gave the sun enough time to burn away the clouds before we started climbing to higher altitudes. Unfortunately the clouds (and a light breeze) came back just as we were starting to dig into Björn's fantastic picnic...
The afternoon was cool, we even saw a bit of snow on the road for a few moments - but as we closed in on Zermatt, the sun came back and allowed some spectacular views of the famous Matterhorn!
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Day 2 brought another day with twisty passes to enjoy.. in fact 6 different ones criss-crossing the alps as we rode from Pontresina to Brunnen. Although we started and ended in Switzerland we dropped into Italy for a pass as well (passo dello Spluga).. and enjoyed a great coffee at the top.
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Day 1:
Another Edelweiss motorcycle tour is on its way to discover the Alps! We had to scrape a bit of ice from our seats this morning, but with the sun up the temperatures rose quickly!
We left Austria through the Inn valley and climbed up the Reschenpass. The artificial lake has taken over the original town of Graun - the only building remaining is the church that sticks out of the lake!
After crossing the border to Italy, we were facing our first major highlight of this tour: the Stelvio Pass, with 48 switchbacks up and 39 down! Fortunately the weather was perfect, so we could enjoy the views from the top - and Bruno's famous sausages! Just a few days ago the pass had been closed due to fresh snow - we could see that winter is close!
Many, many turns and curves later, we arrived at our destination, Pontresina in Switzerland. Some of the guys had so much fun, they decided to add two more passes to the five that we had already done today!