Day 1 - Mieming - Pontresina

Waking up this morning in our beautiful hotel in Mieming, he mountains around us are showing already the first snowy tops of this year. After the hand over of the motorcyles yesterday and the fantastic welcome diner, everybody is eager to go for the first ride. Luckily for us, the weather improved a lot and shows good forecasts for the coming days!

Today 's route will already lead us over some famous mountain passes  to Switzerland where we will stay in the beautiful village of Pontresina

Day 2 - Pontresina - Brunnen

Yesterday was a perfect warming up for the second day of the tour: the route from Pontresina to Brunnen. The entire group chose the long route for today, so starting the beautiful morning out of Pontresina towards the famous olympic village of St. Moritz, where we saw some famous five star hotels in the place which is considered as the very beginning of the wintersports as a leisure. 

Today was again a long day with some challenging passes to go over: Maloja pass, Splügen pass, San Bernadino pass, Lukmanier pass and finally the beautiful Oberalp pass. The weather improved during the day so it was again a day full of fantastic views. 

Satisfied but tired we had again a great diner in our hotel located at the Vierwaldstattersee

Day 3 - Brunnen - Zermatt

This great group of riders can't get enough of riding in the Alps, so everybody chose again for the long route today. And of course also looking forward to what chef Angela was preparing for the picnic in the Göschenen alp. 

Under a overcsted sky we took off direction west to the lake Sarnen. At the turning point to eastern direction the sky cleared out and by the time we ascended to the Susten pass the views were so beautiful that especially John couldn't get enough to take pictures of the environment

Next highlight was the picnic next to the glacier at the end of the Göschenenalp. Unfortunately the sky above the glacier was clouded, but the great picnic made that up. Well done, chef Angela!

On the afternoon program there we had to cross another pass : the famous Furka pass (everyone remembered the Goldfinger movie which was partly filmed at this pass) . At the hotel Belvedere (also in that movie) we visited the ice cave in the Rhone glacier.

Finally arriving in the car free town of Zermatt we had again a nice diner in the cosy restaurant of our hotel. Bonus was a clear sky at arrival so everybody could see the famous mount Mattterhorn in all his glory

Day 4 - Zermatt - Lugano

This was the first day the group splitted up in two groups. John and Kathy and Milton and Lea were following Angela in the van to get in time at Lugano and enjoy the city. The rest of the group followed Ted on the long route to the last part in Switzerland (and a bit of Italy..)

Again the weather gods were nice to us: after a chilly start up from Zermatt in soon cleared out the moment we started to climb up the Simplon pass. Beautiful views and a nice , warm cappucino : what else do you need in the morning!

A challenging small mountain road took us down to the town of Cannobio

After a nice lunch at the lake side of lake Como, we took the ferry from Verbania to Laveno. On the other side we did the last part of the route today through the beautiful surroundings and wine yards of Italy , before getting into the city of Lugano and it's famous lake

Day 5 - Lugano - Bolzano (Klobenstein)

Ahead today the longest riding day of this tour. Again two groups today, so tourguide Ted took off with six bikes on his tail facing at least 1000 cures today! But this geat group riders couldn't get enough of the curves and  switchbacks whatsoever!. Cure after curve they kept on going, well done guys!

The weather was fantastic , especially the secon part of the day when we were facing the very challenging Vivione pass. When finally heading down from the Mendola pass in the beautiful afternoon sun, we had to go up still a bit to the hotel in Klobenstein where we could look back at a fantastic riding day. 

At diner group 1 and group 2 exchanged their stories during , again, a very nice diner!

Tomorrow: restday number one....well...restday?? Riding it's what we want!