By Mark
We finally made it out of France with no problems, happily also for Francis who was probably hoping that he would no longer get anymore distress calls from us wanting a place to stay.
Our aim was to get out of France, cross Switzerland and make it back into Italy to camp the night. It would have been good to be able to spend some more time in Switzerland but with the ridiculous prices of everything we chose to push on. After an unscheduled stop in France for 2 weeks we felt the need to cover some distance.
The weather was great and it was an awesome feeling to be making miles again, to be back in the saddle is where we feel most happy, to stay in a place for a while is always great but to be in a new place every day is a feeling we love most and hard to describe to people who have not experienced this before. Travelling on a whim with no real sense of where you will end up that evening can be hard for some people to take but one we have come to thrive on.
We did however decide to make our way for Lake Como, hoping to catch up with our mate George (Clooney) of course and live a bit of the high life, unfortunately he was not around and after being in the town of Como itself we both wanted out, the plan was to have one last pizza for lunch in Italy but instead we ended up with having homemade salad rolls by the water front. We have become very conscious of our budget and have done very well at keeping to it, even with our bike problems. It has almost been 3 months now since we have crossed from Iran to Turkey and in that time we have only paid for 7 nights accommodation, not bad I think!
So back to camping and we noticed a big change in the temperatures, the warm nights of Southern Europe have now been replaced by the cold evenings of Northern Europe with our coldest night yet experienced in Livigno, Italy it does not help that the town is at a high altitude. We came into town late and I managed to get to eat one more Italian pizza, after dinner it was almost dark and we had to find a campsite quickly. We headed out of town towards the Swiss border, along the way are tunnels by the lake and we noticed a road along side one of them and found a great spot over-looking the lake. It was a chilly night indeed but the daytime temps were ok and the sun was still shining but not for long. We made our way over yet another pass as we were too tight to pay the 18 euros to drive through the tunnel to Switzerland. This was one of a few passes we made our way over that day. Half way down one of the mountain passes I found an impressive campsite not visible from the road where we set up camp. After dinner we jumped into bed and the lightning and thunder kicked off straight away. Well, we where in for some serious rain and it did not let up all night until about 6 in the morning where I could go for a quick pee break. Hoping the weather would change come time to pack up was wishful thinking as the weather had turned for the worst and we were forced to pack up our drenched tent, luckily for us our destination was Munich and a much needed warm shower and dry room was on offer with our biker friend Kevin.
We finally made it out of France with no problems, happily also for Francis who was probably hoping that he would no longer get anymore distress calls from us wanting a place to stay.
Our aim was to get out of France, cross Switzerland and make it back into Italy to camp the night. It would have been good to be able to spend some more time in Switzerland but with the ridiculous prices of everything we chose to push on. After an unscheduled stop in France for 2 weeks we felt the need to cover some distance.
The weather was great and it was an awesome feeling to be making miles again, to be back in the saddle is where we feel most happy, to stay in a place for a while is always great but to be in a new place every day is a feeling we love most and hard to describe to people who have not experienced this before. Travelling on a whim with no real sense of where you will end up that evening can be hard for some people to take but one we have come to thrive on.
We did however decide to make our way for Lake Como, hoping to catch up with our mate George (Clooney) of course and live a bit of the high life, unfortunately he was not around and after being in the town of Como itself we both wanted out, the plan was to have one last pizza for lunch in Italy but instead we ended up with having homemade salad rolls by the water front. We have become very conscious of our budget and have done very well at keeping to it, even with our bike problems. It has almost been 3 months now since we have crossed from Iran to Turkey and in that time we have only paid for 7 nights accommodation, not bad I think!
So back to camping and we noticed a big change in the temperatures, the warm nights of Southern Europe have now been replaced by the cold evenings of Northern Europe with our coldest night yet experienced in Livigno, Italy it does not help that the town is at a high altitude. We came into town late and I managed to get to eat one more Italian pizza, after dinner it was almost dark and we had to find a campsite quickly. We headed out of town towards the Swiss border, along the way are tunnels by the lake and we noticed a road along side one of them and found a great spot over-looking the lake. It was a chilly night indeed but the daytime temps were ok and the sun was still shining but not for long. We made our way over yet another pass as we were too tight to pay the 18 euros to drive through the tunnel to Switzerland. This was one of a few passes we made our way over that day. Half way down one of the mountain passes I found an impressive campsite not visible from the road where we set up camp. After dinner we jumped into bed and the lightning and thunder kicked off straight away. Well, we where in for some serious rain and it did not let up all night until about 6 in the morning where I could go for a quick pee break. Hoping the weather would change come time to pack up was wishful thinking as the weather had turned for the worst and we were forced to pack up our drenched tent, luckily for us our destination was Munich and a much needed warm shower and dry room was on offer with our biker friend Kevin.
Our first night back in Italy
A beautiful village on a lake on our way to Lake Como
Lake Como
My lovely Bamse
Aahhhh, back in the mountains
Outside St Moritz, Switzerland
A very cold night's camping in Livigno, Italy
But the view from our tent was worth it
Italian/Swiss border crossing
One of many passes that we rode all over the Alps
Nice biker lineup at the top of one of the passes
Roadside snack break
Back to Switzerland
And then back to Austria
Awesome campsite in the evening
Not so pleasant the following morning after raining non stop all night and morning
I took Umbrailpass a few years ago and it was lot of fun. Is there a part of it still unpaved?
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