To get a sense of what the ride over the Splügenpaß was like, it's worthwhile to read Mary Shelley's account of her crossing in 1840:
From "Rambles in Germany and Italy"
In 1840, author Mary Shelley traveled through the pass on the way to Lake Como with her son. She describes the pass in her travel narrative, Rambles in Germany and Italy, published in 1844:
A few years ago, there was no path except across this mountain, which being very exposed, and difficult even to danger, the Splugen was only traversed by shepherds and travellers of the country on mules or on foot. But now, a new and most marvellous road has been constructed - the mountain in question is, to the extent of several miles, cleft from the summit to the base, and a sheer precipice of 4000 feet rises on either side. The Rhine, swift and strong, but in width a span, flows in the narrow depth below. The road has been constructed on the face of the precipice, now cut into the side, now perforated through the living rock into galleries: it passes, at intervals, from one side of the ravine to the other, and bridges of a single arch span the chasm. The precipices, indeed approach so near, in parts, that a fallen tree could not reach the river below, but lay wedged in mid-way. It may be imagined how singular and sublime this pass is, in its naked simplicity. After proceeding about a mile, you look back and see the country you had left, through the narrow opening of the gigantic crags, set like a painting in this cloud-reaching frame. It is giddy work to look down over the parapet that protects the road, and mark the arrowy rushing of the imprisoned river. Mid-way in the pass, the precipices approach so near that you might fancy that a strong man could leap across."
Up in the morning to have a nice cup of cappuccino on the veranda overlooking Lake Como. Didn't see George (Clooney) anywhere.
Then it's back on the road again
Google said that it should take about 5 hours, but Google doesn't understand Italian traffic. Luckily, everyone in Europe understands lane splitting, lane sharing and filtering. It was unnerving at first, but after watching and then following, we got the hang of it. You need to understand that as long as you give the drivers enough warning, they will make room for you. You have to watch for tourists and bicycles. It takes some guts and some Star Wars ("Use the Force, Luke")
I figured out the GoPro for this one. It looks better if you watch it on Youtube.
The little yellow guy coming out at the end of the pass was a carabinieri. He didn't bat an eye. Again, you get more detail by watching the YouTube version.
Most of the speed enforcement here is done by camera. 10 over will get you "blitzed". We've been through a couple of manned radar sites, but haven't caught anyone's attention yet.
Even the carabinieri don't care
One of our common activities is to start out the day finding a place to buy a baguette, some meat, cheese and a little wine and find a place to lunch. This day found us looking for a castello (which we never found), but we went through Palazzolo sull'Oglio and found a really nice picnic spot on the Oglio River.
Not a castle, but still cool
Even Italian boxed wine is pretty good
Now all we have to do is find our way back toward Sirmione
For six months, Jayne has been doing research to find castle ruins on an island in an Italian lake. We found ruins of an ancient Roman villa in Sirmione on Lake Garda, and that was it.
The town of Sirmione
Of course we get there on Monday
But it's still pretty neat.
At least we get some beach time.
It was close to 90 degrees out. I had to wet down before I put the riding gear back on.
We ended up in Malcesine on Lake Garda that night, hoping to head for Bolzano the next day. The weather wasn't going to cooperate though. But Malcesine was nice.
We can wholeheartedly recommend the Hotel Alpino. Reasonable prices, great location, nice people.
First, I need to explain that Italian and French wifi have issues from time to time. It's taken me more than a week to find reliable and fast enough wifi to upload pictures and videos. So sorry for the delay.
OK, I know that five countries in one day sounds like a lot, but sometimes it's not.
F
Starting in Lindau, Germany, we went through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Italy. But it was only about 250 km.
Austrian village
We were only in a small corner of Austria. It couldn't have taken more than 1/2 hour to drive through before we reached the border.
Swiss border
Border crossing from Austria to Switzerland
Liechtenstein looks a lot like Switzerland except for the signs
The Principality of Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in the world. It covers 62 square miles and has 35,000 citizens, mostly in Vaduz and Schaan. We stayed in the countryside.
Switzerland is like a fairytale land, with pictures around every corner. It was very beautiful, and the weather was better southbound than it would be northbound. More on that in a few days.
Swiss Alpine Hotel
One of the highlights was the trip over the Splügenpass on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Here is video that Jayne shot from the back of the RT while holding on for dear life. The river is the Rhine, which we followed most of the day. It looks better if you watch it on Youtube. (Just hit the Youtube button once the video starts)
The U Bahn in Munich makes it simple to get around the city. We had dumped the rental car at the train station when we arrived and used the subway to get everywhere from then on. For the next leg of our adventure, we needed to get to a rental station in the north part of town to pick up our next mode of transportation
I had done a lot of research on renting vs. shipping our bike for the amount of time we are going to be here. The two advantages to bringing our own would have been having our custom setup on the bike and being able to ship the gear with the bike. The disadvantages would have been cost and being more at the mercy of weather planning than we were. As it was, we rented our cars and the bike from Sixt car rentals. Their prices have been very reasonable, especially for the bike, which was about half that of the competition. The downside is that they don't rent gear for you or the bike, but that was solved with a short trip to local vendors.
Jayne has a new helmet!
Looking for lunch in Percha
A sign we had to explore
Bavarian countryside
In the distance is a fairytale castle
We wanted to get a good look at Neuschwanstein Castle. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, they were closing for the day. We'll see if we can drop by later in the trip.
That doesn't mean we didn't see any other castles. this is Schloß
Hohenschwangau, a summer residence of King Ludwig II
By many accounts, this was the model for the castle at Disneyland
We arrived in Lindau, on the Bodensee (or Lake Constance to the Swiss) in plenty of time to explore. It is a beautiful port city on a huge Alpine lake.
From Gondelsheim it was off to Stuttgart. We needed to look at some cars. I think they were upset that we parked a Mercedes out front.
The first Porsche when FA worked for Daimler in Austria. Electric drive.
One of the classiest Porsche designs, again while he was working for Daimler.
A 356 roadster, one of our favorites.
This is almost as nice as the engine Predmore is working on. Doesn't Buckley need a 1912 Porsche fire engine?
A 911 GT3 Hybrid. Definitely not a Prius
Lunch was in Weilheim.
They have their own ways of propping up old buildings when they renovate them.
One of the reasons to get the Mercedes was to drive a little fast on the Autobahn. Not all of the Autobahn is unrestricted (much of the system is limited to 130 kph), but there is a stretch between Stuttgart and Munich that was suitable for a little spirited driving.
The speedometer is hard to see; the vibration and focus change makes it difficult. It was in the neighborhood of 235 kph, let's see that's, hmm, carry the one about 146 MPH. Fast enough for those conditions. We would have needed more clear road to squeeze out the last 15 kph.
We got to Munich and it was time for a beer. Like I said, I'm not much into beer, but what else are you going to drink at the Hofbrauhaus?
Marienplatz
In the Marienplatz is the Neues Rathaus, or New Townhall. In it is the famous Glockspiel, with a little play that performs a couple of times a day.
In a few days, this will be jammed with people for Octoberfest
The Fraükirsch
We had another vehicle stop to make. I really needed a new R1200RT t-shirt, but no luck.
My new car. The BMW i8 hybrid. It will go fast enough, and gets 50 mpg. Still not a Prius.
Here's a prototype we caught running around town.
I am a rum connoisseur. I'm alway looking for a great rum and Plantation is one of my favorites. I've never seen a bottle of 20 year old XO, but I can't get it into my motorcycle side cases.
