What makes Italy so great...

Their food

Their scenery

How they find parking space everywhere

The window shopping...

...that never ends

Their wildlife

Their scooter parking

Their parking skills

How they create beauty even in the tiniest spots

How they mourn their deceased ones

The beauty of their vehicles

The beauty of their women (and the fact that they know about it)

Their capability to turn a giant Oops into a giant attraction

That there is always time for a chat

The millions of beautiful cafés

The millions of beautiful turns

Their invention of Vespas...

...and the hospitality of their Vespa-Clubs (© Vespa-Club Pordenone)

... and did we mention the food (and the wine, and the ice cream)?

Italian (and other) Landscapes

We had planned it for quite a while, and now we finally were ready for our Vespa-Tour to the land of sun and good food, and of course the birthplace of our two donkeys, Bella and Alonzo. Obviously this was quite some undertaking, not so much for us, but for our scooters who dutifully moved us through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia and Austria for a total distance of 3.300 kilometers without even complaining once (okay, there was the occasional slight hint of a grumbling, but that was soon forgotten).

The 13 days went by much too fast, and we could easily start the whole tour again right away, but I guess the sorrow at the end of a fantastic trip is as much part of it as the joy of planning the next one.

As Sonja will tell all the stories in detail on her motorcycle blog, here are some of the less scooter-related pictures (although they will make their appearances, of course). This time we will focus on the landscapes we rode through…

Switzerland: Lake Lucerne

 Cannero Riviera at Lago Maggiore

Lago Maggiore at Sunset

 In the rice fields of the Novara area

 Lucca

 Northern Tuscany

 Colle di Val d'Elsa

 Southern Tuscany

 More Southern Tuscany

 Volterra (with David and Sonja on the right)

 View from San Gimignano

 Pisa (quite obviously...)

 A typical Italian cemetery (in the Po Valley)

 Po Valley

 San Benedetto

 Concordia Sagittaria (Venetia)

 Pordenone

 Slovenia: Triglav National Park

 Slovenia: Vršič-Pass

Austria: Attersee

Germany: Neuburg an der Donau

Five Countries in Four Days

We had one of those long weekends where you take one day off and can enjoy four days of vacation (many holidays in Germany fall on a Thursday). So, in preparation of a soon-to-be-happening Vespa-Tour to Tuscany we decided to test our gear and our stamina by traveling through five countries in four days (and counting Liechtenstein as a country which it technically is indeed). Weather forecast was so-so, but that was ok for us as we wanted to find out how we would cope with not-so-beautiful skies.

Day One (Thursday) was a relatively short (but sometimes wet) trip to the German side of the border to Switzerland, where we stayed in the small town of Stühlingen which claims to be famous for starting the spark for the Peasant's War in 1524. We never heard of that so we are not sure of the significance. Anyway the town is quite nice, and the Rebstock Hotel was very welcoming to bikers.

An old barn in Stühlingen

Day Two (Friday) saw us crossing the border to Switzerland, visiting the Rhine Falls in Schaffhausen, avoiding Tourist masses at Constance, traveling eastward on the South side of Lake Constance, fighting rain on entering Austria and finally reaching Bregenz on the far East side of the lake. There we had some good Thai food, and walked it off on the local lake promenade.

Rhine Falls

Lake Constance

Bregenz Lake Promenade

Day Three (Saturday) was cold, misty and rainy, and most of the time all of the above... We traveled the short distance into Liechtenstein (just for the sake of having been there), but returned almost right away into Switzerland as we had to travel westward again. This time we chose a more alpine route further south, and we rode via Wildhaus Pass to Winterthur.

Unfortunately we did not see a thing because the pass was covered entirely in mist and clouds. Indeed we sometimes even had problems following the road due to the thick fog, but this is when GPS navigation comes in handy! Our rain gear did a fantastic job by keeping us more or less dry, but still the humidity managed to creep in every one of our bones. In Winterthur we stopped for a warm and hearty meal, before we continued our journey of almost 300 km to Delémont in the French part of Switzerland which has a very nice historic district.

Day Four (Sunday) saw a sudden but welcome change in weather, and - although starting out quite cold - we were rewarded with beautiful blue skies. So we decided to finish our journey with a small detour into the French Vosges, a biker's paradise on the French side of the river Rhine. Unfortunately we had to cut short this detour a little bit, as we had missed filling our gas tanks before riding into the mountains, so after crossing the peak of Grand Ballon we had to leave the Vosges again in quest for a gas station. Lesson learned... We rode back through the plains of the Rhine area, crossed the Rhine and (for the last time) the border and got back to our place just in time for coffee.

Dans Les Vosges

We are very sad that we cannot simply ride on tomorrow (work is calling!). The donkeys ran fantastic, and all the gear worked very well. It looks like we caught the travel bug again, this time on our Vespas! Looking VERY much forward to our Tuscany trip in a few weeks!