Crossing the alps is always a stunning experience, the feeling of being in the passes, between great snow capped mountains, riding unpredictable roads, sharpens all the senses. It's a surreal world, unfamiliar in so many ways, the alpine air, fresh, clean, tinged with occasional pine lifts the soul, enhancing ones inner spirit. Our day started in Sölden, and after a nice alpine breakfast we were almost immediately at the foot of the Timmelsjoch Pass, which is a well engineered climb, steep in places, but with good overtake opportunities allowing for swift progress. It didn't take us long to reach the toll barrier for our first stop of the day, a visit to the amazing TOP Motorcycle Museum, rebuilt and now fully open following a disastrous fire, note that a couple of hours doesn't do this museum justice!
Crossing the Timmelsjoch brought us into Italy and the Passo del Rombo, which was tighter and the decent was a little more technical, all good prep for what lay ahead, our next highlight, the Stelvio. We approached from the north side, the steepest, sharpest more technical side. It's steep climb, 60 hairpins (the top 48 of them are numbered) securing its place on many motorcyclists, cyclists and drivers bucket list. Whilst it is stunning it is also somewhat frustrating, it is so busy and not everyone is familiar with the correct alpine road etiquette! Anyway, we survived! This was the second crossing of this pass for me, the first time I was just a kid traveling with my parents in their 70's VW camper, and riding it on a modern powerful motorcycle gave me a different respect for those family adventures in a 40bhp 2 tonne bay window camper! Once at the top, all the cafe's were busy, parking a little chaotic so we stopped for a quick snap and moved on as we still had 4 hours of good riding ahead of us.
The south side was less congested and thus more enjoyable, the RT made light work of the decent. The City of Bornio looked inviting, perhaps we could think about staying here next time!
Our next stop was a lovely little cafe on the pass to Aprica, a proper mom and pop place. As the temperature was now in the high 30's a cafe frappe seemed like a nice idea, but thanks to some lingo confusion I ended with an ice cold coffee that had a very generous shot of local hooch in it! Naughty, but so nice! We chilled in the shade of the cafe for a little while before setting off on the final leg to Iseo. The SP510 run us through tunnel after tunnel as it cut its way through hills teasing us with occasional views of the lake below. We arrived in Iseo just as the sun set to a great welcome at the Hotel Arianna, our base for the next couple of nights.
Timmelsjoch
Stelvio's North Face
Obligatory picture by the pass sign!
Nice cafe stop!!
First view of Lake Iseo where it was almost safe to stop!!
Lake Iseo
