(5/22/04 - 6/6/04)
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(This page has pictures from days 6/2 - 6/5)
Start the day at Hotel Evaldo, in Arabba, Italy, on June 2nd.
Leaving Arabba, Brian Beach, Barry and I hit a few passes. This is a random shot leaving Arabba.
Barry on the left, Brian Beach with his helmet on. I like this panorama because you can see the camera in my motorcycle mirror. :-)
Top of a pass outside Arabba.
Some little pigmy goats at the top of the pass.
We stopped at this castle along the way. That's Brian Beach in the foreground.
Panorama of the castle from below. It is Castle Runkelstein, and it has something to do with drums, but none of the literature was in English so we just looked around, took a few pictures, and left.
Inside Runkelstein Castle.
Looking down to the spot I took the pictures looking up.
Random picture from the wall.
Looking out over the valley.
Random shot.
Later in the day, over the Manghen Pass.
Looking down at the road we are about to drive on.
Panorama from the top of Manghen pass.
Barry, ahead of me on a typical sized road we're on, about one lane (two way traffic).
Brian Beach in blue and Barry in the tunnel.
Random panorama during a navigation stop (we're trying to figure out where we are).
Found it! I've been at this spot on a previous trip, but the weather wasn't as good.
Arriving at Monte Bondone! This picture taken the morning of June 3rd, as we were leaving. The hotel is the Hotel Montana, Monte Bondone, Trentino, Italy.
We finally figured out these signs in Italy we kept seeing. If you go faster than 50 kilometers/hour, the stop light will change to red automatically (automated radar). Of course, after breaking the speed limit, the Italians just blow right through the red light, which makes sense if you think about it from an Italian perspective.
After leaving Monte Bondone, we headed south and stumbled onto this particular road. Technically it was closed to Motorcycles, but we were lost and decided this was the fastest way back to our planned route. It turned out to be a back way up the Tremalzo pass, mostly for hikers and mountain bikes.
This road turned to about half a lane, and made out of gravel the size of footballs. And the drop off the side was a couple hundred yards down! With tunnels around corners. Check out the picture above and below to see the road we just came up. The red arrows point out the road and the tunnel we came through. No guard rail, and notice the ledge we could drop off!
The road we came up, looking down at some cars and people stopped on it.
The road.
Brian Beach pointing where he thinks we should go.
Yes, below is the road. It's about 2 feet wide, with an overhanging cliff, and a thousand feet down to the right, with loose gravel.
Whew! We finally made it out, and can see the Tremalzo pass restaurant in the distance.
Time for cappuccino, it's about 1pm now, and we're now behind schedule by about 4 hours. :-)
In this picture you can see the signs saying: "No Motorcycles", "Danger", "Avalanches", "Uneven Road", "No Trucks", "No Camping".
A little while down the way, we find out our next planned pass (Croce Dominii pass) is closed. The alternative route is a long, LONG way around, and we're already very late, so we decide to go around the barrier. You can see the path around the barrier to the right of Brian Beach in the photo below.
Here we are at the other end of the pass, 20 minutes later. We had to take off one of our saddle bags on the motorcycles to sneak around the end of the barricade. Here Brian Beach is carrying his saddle bag up to his motorcycle after getting around the barricade.
At the restaurant at this last barricade, we find that another group from our tour has also hopped the barricade (ahead of us by a few minutes) and we have lunch with them. Graham on the left standing, Donna warming up sitting down, Brian Bach, Valerie, and Dennis and Dennis.
Later in the day, we hit both Gavia pass and Stelvio Pass. These are two of the highest passes in the Alps, way up there in the snow. In the picture below Brian Beach poses in front of the sign at the top of Gavia.
I think this is the road leading up to Stelvio.
Either the back side of Gavia, or leading up to Stelvio. It's a lot of snow, Brian Beach is stopped waiting for me to take this picture way up in about the middle of the panorama.
At the top of Stelvio. The back side of the pass is still closed, so we have to back track.
At the end of the day (a LONG day), we make it to Zuoz, Switzerland, to the Hotel Engiadina.
The next day the weather doesn't start out great, here we are at a low moutain pass (most of those motorcycles aren't in our group). You can see the fog we're riding through.
The weather gets a little better, and in this little town is this painted building.
We were looking for this. It's a church that is submerged under water. They decided to make this man-made lake, and they didn't move the church (or the town, the rest of the submerged town is at the bottom of the lake).
Starting up the Hahntennjoch Pass.
Panorama on the Hahntennjoch Pass.
Another Hahntennjoch Pass panorama. Brian Beach and Barry are in front of me to the right.
Ok, the last panorama was a composite of two pictures (and I'm not that good at photoshop). Below is the original where I got Brian and Barry out of.
Another Hahntennjoch Pass panorama.
June 4th, arriving at Hotel Linserhof, Imst, Austria.
The next day (June 5th), our last day, heading back to Olching, we stopped at one of crazy kind Ludwig's castles. It is made to be a small replica of Versailles. It is relatively modern, actually built with electricity and heating.
Crazy Ludwig built this cave (it's completely artificial, plaster and steel) which is designed as a stage for a Wagner opera. The cave and the pool could be heated, and the cave has electric lights. The opera was never held in the cave, because Ludwig is such a lunatic he built it but never invited the opera to come perform.
The final dinner back in Olching.
Final dinner. From left to right: Richard, Graham, Dennis Simon, and Al Walker. Graham, Dennis, and Al are wearing motorcycle ties designed by Dennis.
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