A long and twisty ride brought the group to Italy - Bozen is our home for two days. A perfect place to rest - with the pedestrian area, lots of stores and the "Iceman"-museum waiting right in front of the hotel! Some of us decided to leave the bike in the garage today - I am sure they have a great day... but they missed this:

Karersee and the Latemar mountains, in the morning sun!

A couple of 1000 feet higher and about 20 hairpin turns later, they missed this:

Tim, Darlene and Rusty on Passo Sella

This is  a try of capturing the panorama - but pictures don't even come close to showing the incredible beauty of this spectacular part of the Alps!

Panoramic view of Passo Sella

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After a beautiful morning in Zermatt with another great view of the Matterhorn we headed towards Italy.

The Matterhorn, a little pale behind our beautiful group!

After all the spectacular pass roads yesterday, the Simplon Pass was an easy challenge today:

The Simplon Pass

A tougher challenge was to eat all the food in the restaurant that we had chosen for lunch. The starters would have been enough, but the Pasta were simply too good to be missed!

Rusty, Tim and a lot of great pasta!

The restaurant, hidden in the Italian mountains

After the short excursion to Italy for lunch we have returned to Switzerland, where we will spent one more night - in Lugano.

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We have reached Switzerland! As you can see, the weather and landscape are still absolutely spectacular:

The famous Matterhorn!

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The Ultimate Alps Tour is on its way! We have left Munich/Erding this morning - after  a great Bavarian breakfast with White Sausages and sweet mustard. Perfect motorcycle weather was forecasted for today - just right to get used to the new bikes that where waiting for us in the garage.

After a short stop on Lake Starnberg we continued to King Ludwig's smallest palace, Linderhof. After a good lunch we crossed the border to Austria, where the first real mountains waited for us. A few switchbacks gave us a little taste of the days to come. The first evening will be spent at a wonderful mountain hotel at an elevation of 5000 ft - the only sound you can here is the sound of the cow bells on the surrounding mountains!

The first beer after the ride is always the best!

Our first dinner in Austria!