From San Vito de Cadore…

Today was a day of happiness – sheer, unadulterated happiness over some of the finest roads I have ridden and the most magnificent mountains I had the good forture to see. As I write and sip my martini, I am surrounded by them – gigantic, massive, craggy peaks encircling the little town of San Vito di Cadore, where I am stopped for the night. The Dolomites are truly a thing of beauty. To think that I came so close to never seeing them at all. That I might have left Europe without ever knowing them!

And yet, I agonized all evening, most of the night and this morning when I woke up in Padova, as to what my route was going to be. The easy, short route would have been to go east towards Trieste and Piran, by the water. It would have been a quick ride, and then another short ride the next day to Ljubljana, where I could stop riding, and rest and sleep and call this journey to a close. I was so tired that it was beyond tempting. The other reason at the back of my mind of course was that this was the *Dolomites*, some of the tallest mountains in Europe, and me with my severe vertigo would be a very bad combination. I kept recollecting the moments of blind terror on the Swiss Alps a couple of days ago, and the one moment on Furka Pass when I was quite sure that I was going to die.

In spite of the terrifying few minutes though, I had to force myself to remember that the rest of the ride had been fantastic and the sights I had seen will forever remain in my memory. I also recalled the heart-thumping thrill at the end of the ride, when I rode the last few kilometers to my lodging, with the thought that yes, this had truly been an adventure. It had been challenging to my mind and body, it had kicked me out of my comfort zone, it had forced me to develop riding skills that I’ve needed for the roads I had ridden before, it had been difficult, but I had made it. Out of all the days of the past month that I rode, this was the one day that had felt like a real riding adventure. I could have that again if I could only swallow my fears and head north to the Dolomites. “But I’m scared”, said a tiny voice at the back of my head. Would I rather be scared and take the easy path, or push through the pain and do what I really wanted to do? I chose to do the thing that spelt doom. After hours upon hours of agonizing, the relief that came with a decision made was tremendous.

As it turned out, all my fears were a little laughable. The roads through the Dolomites were fantastic and not in the least bit scary. A big part of this was because even though they climbed as high as the Swiss Alps, they had more tree coverage and there were no unprotected cliff views of how far you could fall if you slipped and went down. (Thinking about that one narrow road on Furka Pass with a drop of 2000+ metres makes me want to throw up.) I was also now a lot more used to riding the switchbacks. I wasn’t fast by any means, and I ran wide way more often than I wanted, but I did fine. The downhill parts were sheer pleasure and I wonder whether the riders that passed me could see the big grin splitting my face in two.

The route that I did today was roughly north from Padova to Bassano del Grappa, which was sheer riding hell going slow through small towns in hot, muggy weather. Thank heavens for lane splitting! Oh and whoever complains about how bad the driving in Italy is, I really wonder where they’ve been riding. Agreed that their roads are arranged in a somewhat crazy manner and I had many WTF moments, but the drivers themselves aren’t at all bad, either on the Autostrade or the little towns. At no point did I feel afraid or unsafe.

I felt my spirits reviving only after I started seeing mountains in the distance. Finally I was upon them. The road surface was not as nice as the ones in Switzerland, but it was every bit as twisty as I had hoped for. Traffic had sped up and I kept passing cars unabashedly even on the solid lines now, taking point from the Italian motorcyclists on the road. On a tangent, I love that European motorcyclists are almost always in full leathers, no matter what the weather. I contrast that with the squids on American roads and I wish we could be more like them.

Further north no towards Feltre and Fiera de Primiero. I stopped somewhere near Mezzano to get lunch (I’d had an awful breakfast the past couple of days) and stepped into a restaurant which had a little boy at the reception. There was not another soul in the place. He took my order of panini with proschiutto and cheese, which turned out to be a hamburger bun with some meat and cheese. *sigh* I asked him if he would at least heat it up, which he did. Communication in Italy has been the most difficult in West Europe so far. Most other countries, folks spoke rudimentary English, especially the younger people, but here it’s been rather non-existent. My fault for not knowing any Italian at all, of course.

After that extremely bizarre lunch, which seemed more of a waste of time, I got on the road again. I went over Passo di Rolle, my first pass of the day. :) Then north to Canazei and the big pass – Passo di Giau. What a fantastic, panoramic view!! The place was crawling with motorcycles and mountains for as far as the eye could see.

  

  

From here, it was a short ride to Cortina D’Ampezzo, my final destination of the day. I wanted to find a place to stay at night, but I learned from the locals that it would very expensive and I should ride down 10km to San Vito di Cadore, which turned out to be good advice. I did get some tasty treats from a bakery in Cortino though. Mmmm… wish they made those in Seattle.

At San Vito, I stopped at Hotel Colli, the first one I saw, which looked the most appealing after I had ridden down the street to the end of town and back. The people who owned it were super-nice, the room was a mere 53 euros, they offered to let me park my bike in their garage, and I think they might have given me their best room, right at the top with a great view of the mountains. After days and days of living in hostels, the last few of which had been really crummy, I was delighted to have my own, private, luxurious room. Oh the small pleasures of life on the road. :)

  

After I had unpacked and cleaned up, I walked down to the tourist center, where they gave me a login and password for the town’s free wifi. (Pretty soon we will have internet considered to be a basic utility, I’m sure.) I had dinner which was a tasty ravioli called “casunciei”, considered to be a specialty of the Marmolada and Arabba regions.

After dinner, I went for a walk around town, aiming for the river behind the hotel which I reached via a narrow, crumbling, slippery path. It smelt so good and clean. I really needed the mountain air after the past couple of days in mainland Italy. The views of the mountains once again made my jaw drop. I know I keep talking about them, but you really have to see them to know what I mean. I could spend all day looking at them, watching the colors change and the shadows deepen. The last mountain town that I was in that can even begin to compare was Seward up in Alaska.

This is my idea of an ideal day – great riding in fantastic weather during the day and an interesting place to spend the evening with a warm, comfortable bed waiting for you at the end of the night. I like this town. I see old people gathering in the cafes and families walking by shops and calling out to the owners. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else by name. The neighborhood bakery and supermarket have cheeful and inviting. They have community here, and they have the mountains. What more could one want?

Tomorrow I start heading back towards Slovenia. I purposefully want to delay it, stay here for longer, roam the mountains some more, but I know that I have to go. Very soon the dream will be over and life will be back to normal. I feel happy though, for the first time this month, or this year. Happy and content and joyous. I think I finally found myself again.

A little sidetrip from Padua to Venice…

Venice was… full of more tourists than you could shake your fists at. I wish I could wax eloquent about how beautiful I thought it was, but to me it had the same feeling as Prague – stuffed to the gills with tourists and shops and restaurants sporting tourist menus and tourist prices, the latter being the more aggravating. Even though I cannot abide obnoxious tourists, I tolerate even less local establishments inflating their prices to almost stupid-high levels to take advantage of them. In most other cities, I had been able to dodge this by seeking refuge in the quieter streets, but here it seemed unavoidable. Everywhere I went there were shops selling stuff and people thronging the crowded, narrow streets, leading to a kind of claustrophobia worsened by the thought of being on an island surrounded by water, with no possible escape. I had at least one unpleasant experience involving paying 30 odd euros for a meal, where I felt completely ripped off and left feeling very disillusioned. One judges a city based on how the locals treat you, after all.

I suppose that on another day at another time, I might think of it as a beautiful city. It was certainly very unique seeing as it was entirely situated on a series of islands and connected by a complex network of canals and bridges, and the only way to get around were boats. It appealed to both my engineering and artistic sensibilities. I also know that quite a few people love this city and keep returning to it, so maybe I will have to give it another chance someday. For now, I’ll just post some photos and remember the best parts.

  

  

   

Venetian masks are a thing of beauty. Until you encounter about the one hundredth shop selling them. (I did get two beautiful ones though, which are now on my living room walls.)

  

  

Padova, Italy

After Cologne, I had been hoping to say goodbye to my mindless motorway riding days. But the weather had other plans for me. There was a storm coming from the west which I needed to escape. And there weren’t very many cool small roads to ride through in the part of Italy surrounding the Milano area. So motorway it was. My destination for the day was Padova. It was far enough from Milan, close enough to to Venice to take a train there, and south of the Dolomites, should I decide to ride north through them to Slovenia.

I steeled myself against the long, boring journey and hoped that the horror stories I had heard about the Italian autostrade were just hearsay.

Once again I (illegally) took the motorway in Switzerland out of Bellinzona until I crossed the border into Italy. The motorways in Italy do not require a vignettes, rather they are a series of toll roads owned by different companies. I had vivid memories of the toll booths in Boston and New Jersey from last year, and how much I had loathed the stop-go traffic for miles to go through them. There was nothing to be done though and I had to suffer through it. The first couple of booths I encountered were confusing. I hadn’t gone through anything where I could get a ticket to show where I had started from, so I wasn’t sure how they would know how much to charge. Turns out it was a flat rate for that section of road, although I realized that only in hindsight. The toll collectors didn’t speak a word of English, so any attempt at communication was futile. The tickets were usually inexpensive, in the neighborhood of 1.80 euros each for motorcycles. The last couple of hundred kilometres did require me to pick up a ticket, which they ran through a machine at a later point to find the total amount I needed to pay. I think I overall spent less than 15 euros for the entire distance.

While I was aimed for Padova, I couldn’t resist getting off the road when I saw signs for Verona. Shakespeare-land! Memories of reading the Bard’s famous plays when I was little swept through my head and with a vicarious thrill, I pointed the bike towards the center of Verona. I didn’t stay for very long because I kept missing turns and got warmer and warmer. It was the kind of city best explored on foot anyway, not in full gear on a hot day. At first glance, it looked very old and dusty, with crumbling buildings lining crowded streets. I found a gas station to fuel up and took off.

Riding on the Autostrade was fine. Better than fine actually. Once again I admired how traffic flowed smoothly on the German and Italian freeways. People strictly adhered to the rule of “keep right except to pass”, unlike in the United States where people just camp in the left lane. In Europe, I also didn’t encounter any of the passive aggressiveness that I’m so used to at home. If you turn on your indicators to pass someone, they yield. Overall I felt really safe on the freeways here even at speeds as high as 140 kmph. That’s the highest that I think I went because that’s the most both my bike and I were able to handle. It was about on par with most of the other vehicles on the road, although occassionally you got people going 200 on the German autobahns.

The only downside to riding in this part of Italy was the air quality. I don’t know if this area is more industrial, but it felt extremely polluted, to the point where the humidity and pollution made me feel like I was back in Bombay again. Towards the end of the ride, I could feel my eyes stinging.

Padova came up around 2:00 in the afternoon. I rode through a series of cobblestone streets – these were different from the ones I had ridden over in other countries. I bet they got really slippery after it rained. I was unfortunate enough to be stuck behind a car going extremely slow. it was a lot easier to ride over this surface at a spirited pace, rather than 10 kmph.

I found the hostel easily enough. My heart sank when I saw that the checkin time was 4:00PM, but luckily they let me in and allowed me to put my stuff away in the storage room. I took off my gear, changed into walking shoes and packed my small backpack to head into town.

Walking through the streets of Padova felt like I was in an episode of Doctor Who. I had the strange feeling of having been transported into another time and era. The streets were deserted as I walked past a small river and crossed a bridge along more cobblestone paths. The buildings were like the ones in verona had been – old and crumbling, almost ancient.

  

There was not a soul on the road – I realized later that it was siesta time. Everything shut down in the afternoons. Most shops were closed – completely unheard of back home! I was starving by now, so the charm of this phenomenon wasn’t completely endearing right at that moment. I went to a couple of cafes and managed to find some small sandwiches to eat. I realized more and more that communication was going to be a real problem, because unlike in Germany and Switzerland, nobody here spoke English. I was left with communicating purely in sign language. It was a little more isolating than I had thought it would be.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering and trying to keep cool. The head and humidity tired me out rapidly and I finally staggered back to the hostel to take a long nap. When I woke up, it was 9:00PM. I realized with a shock that once again I had to go hunt for food and be back soon. For some arcane reason, this hostel closed its gates at 11:30PM, but didn’t give me a key, so I had to be back by then. Fortunately, I found a good restaurant close by, where I got some pasta and a mojito. The cold drink was perfect for the weather and I felt considerably more refreshed afterwards.
When I returned to the hostel, I made plans for the next day. I would ride the train to venice. By the very nature of the city, no vehicles can go into the city, so it didn’t make sense to ride the motorcycle there. I would spend the day there and ride the train back in the evening. It seemed like a good plan.

Riding through Switzerland…

This was supposed to be a short riding day from Basel to Interlaken. It would be my first day of riding through Switzerland. As always, the prospect of riding through a new country was exciting. It was sprinkling down in Basel when I walked out of the HI hostel in the morning to go get the bike. Rain again! Is there ever any escape? And to think that I thought I had picked the wrong month for visiting Europe, imagining it would be unbearably hot. Turns out, I had indeed picked the wrong month, but for an entirely different reason. I zipped in the liners to my jacket and pants. Even if it was just sprinkling, I didn’t want to take the chance that it would turn into a downpour.

I needed to fuel up before I left – I never appear to get into the habit of fueling up at the end of the day so that I could just get out and ride the next day – but the Zumo routed me to locations where no gas stations existed – twice! It was beyond maddening because Basel was an incredibly difficult city to ride through and I kept making wrong turns and needing to backtrack. All this while moving really slow and gettijng more and more warm in my gear, while the rain kept misting up my visor. I finally found a gas station and after puzzling over the options – none of them were in English – picked one that looked least likely to be diesel and fueled up. This was the first station I had encountered that accepted only credit cards. Almost every other gas station required you to fuel up first, leave the bike parked, and to go inside and pay the attendant (unlike in the US where you insert a card, fuel up, and the machine automatically deducts the correct amount). The machine asked me to enter a pin number, even though I had used a credit card. Not wanting it to do a cash advance, I used my debit card instead.

Since I was routing through non-toll roads, the GPS routed me through various small roads and cities to Interlaken. There was a lot of construction on the way and traffic moved slowly. I found a few really nice roads that went through forests and fields. Most of the route was over small hills, nothing overly dramatic, since I’m guessing I was still in the lower foothills of the Swiss Alps.

The road got dramatically better as I neared the last 50kms to Interlaken. It went right past the lake, which was a vision. Co-incidentally, the music playing in my helmet switched to “Welcome to Dreamland”, which I thought was fantastic timing. The lake and sky and mountains blended in a vision of deep, sparkling blue. The sun wasn’t out yet, but it had stopped raining and it really felt like I was riding through a dream. The road surface was impeccable, and it twisted and turned past the blue waters. Far off in the distance, I could see the mighty mountains… finally!! I reached the hostel in Interlaken all too soon.

Throughout the ride, I had been thinking about the weather forecast. It was sprinkling today, but they predicted heavy thunderstorms through the area I would be going through the next day (Interlaken to Bellinzona via the Grimsell and Furka passes). I was already a little spooked by the thought of riding through my first high mountain passes, and I was less than thrilled about having to do it in spectacularly bad weather. By the time I was pulled over at the hostel in Interlaken, I decided that I would try to cancel my reservation there, and keep going towards Bellinzona. It was only 2:00PM, and if all went well, I would reach Bellinzona before dark. I wasn’t too tired, although I knew that I would be before long, but it seemed like the only sensible thing to do.

The hostel refused to refund the booking fee, in spite of me having bought the cancellation insurance, which was irksome, but they did help me call the Bellinzona hostel to move my reservation from the next night to that night, and advised me on my route. They said to skip the Gotthard tunnel, which was a 48km long tunnel – not much fun for motorcyclists – and go on the outside roads instead. I took heed of their suggestions and left.

It’s a shame I couldn’t stay in Interlaken. It looked like a gorgeous place, and a haven for outdoors-y people with tons of climbing and kayaking.

I ventured on towards Grimsell Pass. It was raining steadily now and as I climbed, it got colder. The road was very challenging to me as I wasn’t used to riding switchbacks like these. The weather meant that there was hardly anyone out, and I didn’t see very many motorcylists on the road. I kept climbing higher and higher, getting ever so nervous as I did. The views were spectacular and panoramic, and I eyed them with fascination mixed with trepidation. At one point, I turned a corner to see an almost otherworldly vision of an immense landscape of green strewn with grey boulders of every shape and size. The mountains were huge and towering. If only I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out of the bad weather, I might have just stopped and gazed and gazed. I had never seen anything like it before.

I managed to take these two photos when I stopped briefly to check that I was on the right track. It doesn’t quite convey the enormity of the mountains and how dwarfed I felt by comparison.

  

I reached the top of Grimsell Pass and pulled over to take pictures. They weren’t very good because of the fog and the rain. A few other motorcyclists were stopped too. We left at about the same time, and I trailed them for a little while until they lost me.

  
Onward now to Furka Pass. I was a little cocky now after having gotten through my first mountain pass unscathed. This was nothing to be afraid of, I thought. It was actually getting to be very good fun! If only I had had enough sleep and rest and slightly better weather, I might have had the time of my life on those roads. As it was, I had a big grin on my face as I descended the first mountain and ascended towards the next pass.

The grin was completely wiped off and replaced with a deer-in-the-headlights type terror as I climbed to the top of Furka Pass. It was high up there and no guard rails to speak off. The cars ahead of me slowed to a crawl, as did I. I had one near death moment when a tour bus lumbered towards me from around a corner, but I didn’t dare to swerve right to get out of its way. I also happened to be in the wrong gear, so I couldn’t even accelerate out of trouble if I had wanted to. Fortunately, the bus went past with a few inches to spare, but I really thought I was a goner then.

The descent was equally scary for at least the next ten minutes, with steep hairpin turns that plummeted far below into an abyss, should you miss a turn. It also got colder and colder. This was the least fun part of the ride. Once I had more or less descended, I was okay, but still a little shaken and wondering what Gotthard Pass had in store for me. I soon found out – almost zero visibility rain and fog. I had to ride with my visor up so I could see anything at all. I stopped at one spot and turned into a restaurant I spied to ask them how long the weather would continue as it didn’t really seem safe to keep going when I could barely see. There were a couple of motorcyclists there who had stopped for the night. They said that it would be terrible weather until I got down to the motorway, but I should keep going and go slow. From there it was only about 40 miles to Bellinzona. I was so close now that there was no way I could stop, even though I was tempted to stay there for the night.

This was on top of Gotthard Pass. The only dry spot here appears to be directly under my bike.

Go slow I did. The rain kept up throughout until I reached the point where I could get on the motorway. I didn’t have a vignette to drive on it, but I was beyond caring. I had gone so slow all day, that I just wanted to get to my hostel in the fastest way possible and stop for the night. I made good speed on the motorway and surprisingly enough found that I had that high you get after you’ve been through a long, hard day. It had been a day well lived, in spite of the scary moments. In many ways, it had been the first real motorcycling adventure day. I’m sure that in ideal conditions, this would have just been a fun little ride, but on this particular day it had really tested my mental and physical endurance, and I was thrilled on the high of having made it.

Bellinzona was cool and yet another city that I wished I could have spent more time in. The hostel was clean and affordable, the town square was walking distance from it, and I was able to get some good ravioli and red wine to celebrate the end of a very full day and feel like I deserved it.

Here is a picture of Bellinzona that I took the morning after. It looks positively tropical in comparison to the Switzerland I had seen thus far.

My next decision would be whether I should go north back into the mountains (and more rain) or south towards warmer climes. It was an easy decision.

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[See more photos of Grimsel Pass here, Furka Pass here, and St. Gotthard Pass here. And more about the Alpine Passes here. And this guy here has a fantastic set of photos that document the ride I did.]

Here are a few that show the roads that I rode. I’m slightly frustrated that I couldn’t have done them on a better day, but I feel privileged that I was able to ride them at all! And I know they will still be there when I return. In fact, I have a feeling that this is going to be the beginning of a lifelong obsession.

The below pictures are courtesy of www.pictures-switzerland.com. The first two are of Grimsell Pass and the last two are Furka and Gotthard Passes respectively.

  

  

The Black Forest…

Today was fantastic, plain and simple. The riding was the best I’ve done on this trip, this year, in fact, for pretty much all the time I’ve been riding. Today had everything – warm, sunny weather, twisties, panoramic views, a big blue sky with big white puffy clouds, lush green landscape, and roads that made me weep with their perfection. Even getting stuck behind a few cars didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. Everyone needs to ride the roads in the Black Forest once in their lifetime.

I left Freibourg around 9AM this morning and headed north toward Waldkirch. From hereon started the twisties. The road was a narrow, single lane one, which climbed up steadily. There were a few uphill decreasing radius turns that caught me off-guard. Before I knew it, I was above the tree line. I wondered if my fear of heights was going to kick in, but out of nowhere, the road suddenly widened to signal my first via point – the village of Sankt Peter. A few minutes before there had been nothing but a tight winding road through the forest, now there was a big hotel with tens of motorcycles parked outside it. I stopped and took all the pictures I possibly could.

 

After a brief stop at the hotel, I took off again, this time towards the village of Sankt Margen. More brilliant roads, more unbelievable views – lush green meadows, cows grazing, elevation changes, gloriousness.

Southward bound now towards Odenback and Birklehof and then the B31 to TItisee-Neustadt. There were way too many tourists there for my liking, so I did a quick circle around the town square and fled. The B317 took me toward Barental and then the B500 to Schluchsee. The lake was gorgeous. I rode past it for a little bit before turning around. Once again, there were too many tourists at this resort town. I did stop for a quick meal before heading on the road though.

  

There were hundreds of motorcyclists out on the roads today, fully clad in leathers. The Europeans take their safety gear very seriously. I followed their example and started passing cars and lane splitting. Why oh why do cars drive so slow?! Most of them were good enough to move over for me although I did encounter a few a**holes who did their best to not let me pass.

On this ride too, there was that feeling of riding through town after ghost town. Big empty houses flanking the streets with not a soul in sight. The only times I saw people were at the bigger resort towns near the lakes.

Southward again on L146 towards Todtmoos and a little detour towards Utzenfeld. East again towards Sankt Blasein, a picturesque little village. I wished I could stay, but I didn’t. The road was a-calling! And what a road! South all the way on L154 to the Rhine. Hundreds of little twisties! The road was narrow and flanked with a cliff to the left and rock barriers to the right. Everyone needs to ride this road once before they die! I truly did shed tears at the end of it. I was this close to turning around and doing it all over again. The only thing that made me continue was the thought of wanting to get to Basel early enough during the day that I’d be able to see a bit of the town.

I had picked the last part of the route to run parallel to the Rhine and ride into the city of Basel in Switzerland. It looked like it would be pretty on the map, very like riding past the Mosel a couple of days ago. In hindsight though, this was a mistake. Even though I rode past the Rhine, the road was lined with steel mills and foundries. I guess they build the industrial towns right next to the great river.

The road also went through numerous towns with low speed limits and slow drivers. It was really hot and humid now. It was only 36km more, although it seemed longer. I rode a total of 233km (approoximately 140 miles). Did I mention that it was the most glorious riding I have done, even though I didn’t come across any trolls or gnomes in the Black Forest? :)

I finally reached Basel a little past four and checked in to the HI hostel that I had booked the previous day. The hostel was very nice although I got a bit of a sticker shock at the cost of everything, even though I had been forewarned. Wifi was 1 franc for 10 minutes or 6 francs for an hour or 15 francs for 24 hours. Laundry was 15 francs with a 24 hour turnaround, so that was out of the question. Dinner was 17 francs. I escaped into the main town in a little bit and got a doner kebab type wrap for a whopping 9.5 francs, and it wasn’t even that good. A latte at Starbucks was 5.80 francs. Given that a swiss franc is equivalent to a US dollar, this was all stupid expensive.

I wonder if it is possible to not eat or drink at all for my remaining 3 days in Switzerland.

I roamed the town of Basel for a little while until finally turning around to the find the hostel again. I was rewarded with probably one of the most spectacular visions of this journey – the Rhine at night, calm and clear, glittering with a thousand lights.