banniere TrackandRoad
| Connect

Aidez le site : faites un don Paypal

Snow, lakes and highway

May 29th / Mörel - San Martino a Scopetto : 572 km

We were not especially confident, and we saw we were right opening curtains : there is still as much snow !! Let's forget Furka, and choose another way to go to Italy. The most simple way seems to use the train which goes under Simplon pass. Station is only 10 km from the hotel, so we go there directly. Of course, train has just left, and next one starts in 2 hours. Simplon pass seems to be opened, and without snow equipements required. According the time we have before next train, i think it could be great to try, and if there is a problem, we'll just have to go down and catch train. I spend 10 minutes more to convince Antoine (called 'The motorcycle adventurer'), and we go uphill. Snow appears quickly on roadside, but road remains clean. Summer gloves are a bit too 'light', but it doesn't matter, we won't live such a thing every day. And we reach the 2005 m summit.

Photo 1Google Earth Link : FAQ

Antoine au col du Simplon

As we are lucky, a little blizzard begins to blow, brr, it's really cold.

Photo 2

C'est l'été

Photo 3

Col du Simplon

We can go down the pass (Antoine is already searching everywhere a place to wash his bike), and we enter in Italy for the first time. Ooooh, I didn't present you Italian customs officers. They react to some keywords : just say "Mugello" or "Valentino", and then "Ayaya, va bene, va bene". You could have 10 cigarette packs on your saddle, they wouldn't even notice it.

We reach italian lakes with a very small end-of -valley road, with a perfect surface and tight hairpins. We come back to Swiss, clean bikes (!!), cross Lugano and its amazing villas (looks like French Riviera in the heart of Alps), and now we are near Como lake.

Photo 4

Bellagio, vue de la rive ouest du lac de Come

In order to optimize trip, and, i must confess, also a little by nostalgy of Norwegian ferries, we cross the lake on a boat. But i forgot one important rule in these boats : as bridge is bended, you must always park your bike in the center, or a little on the right. here I am on the left, and i can't use sidestand, I risk to destroy it. So, I spend all the crossing sitting on the bike, hanging on the boat wall...not so great!! We arrive in Bellagio (like Vegas Casino !!)

Photo 5

Bellagio et arrivée du bac

Now we just have to catch highway near Milano to reach our bed and breakfast near Firenze. It's quite late, and we don't feel like making our host wait too much. And, believe me, we really make our best to arrive on time. But, I'll understand later that the little roadsigns 'autovelox' are not an advertisement for tyres glue, but are indicating automatic speed controls...

We arrive at 21, have a quick lunch, and let's discover Tuscany tomorrow.