Day 7

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Day 6

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The goal of the day was the holy trinity, Furka - Grimsel - Nufenen passes. It's hard to capture the magniture of the roads from the bottom.
Furka Pass:

We stopped here, a guy had a flat tire and needed some tools - which Radu happened to have.

He drove an Escort, and it was his "fun car, for going on the mountain" He forgot to check the inside of the tires - not good.

Little woman, big mountain

We stopped at a small cafe in Andermatt, and had a hot chocolate. It was freezing, and the mist lay dense and damp.

Then we came to the new Gothard pass. The old one looked nicer, but it was paved with cubic stone - not nice to drive on.

After hitting a 20 km/h fog for like 1 hour on Susten pass, and when the fog dissapeared, the rain started, we finally came to the dead town of Wassen, where everything was silent except a mother, a father and a kid playing. The hotels were closed, but we managed to find a nice cheap backpacker place. Beer time again!

Radu is doing the dishes, and I'm catching it on film!


Grimsel pass was in fog and mist, so no action there. Gotta go back in 2 years ..

Day 5

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'We woke up at sunrise, which was about 7 or 8 AM, and Radu went to get some breakfast from the neighborhood bakery. He brought us croissants á lá Italiana, and that means filled with Nutella. "This is not a croissant" he commented. The subject matter expert. I wouldn't know. I would only eat a croissant if it was filled with meat.

We packed our stuff in a hurry and left heading for Aosta. It started to get very hot, very quick, but now at least I was happy I was in leathers, at least they got soft in the heat.


What we thought was going to be a couple of hours of driving became a painful village-to-village and to the next village at 50-60 km/h.

By noon we stopped for a bite to eat, at the local coffe shop, and got ourselves a foccaccia sandwich with a perfect double espresso and a large beer. Excelent! After charging our batteries, we got back into our hot, freshly sun-dried riding gear, and headed on. At some point we took a mountain road towards the border city of Domodossola, and what a marvellous ride! No police, no threats of hidden cameras, just go as fast as you can. Which by the way isn't very fast, the road is tight, and the hairpins slow you down a lot. We stopped at Sanctuario D'Oropa, built in like 1100, and had some water from the fountain in the center of the sanctuary.

 It was BIG. It's a must see if you're down there ..
At the sanctuary we found out that we had gone too far and had to go back. After some more nice mountain roads, I started to get tired, had back and neck pains, and fell behind, so we decided to stop for a moments rest at a mountain café in Valle Sessera,  a beautiful place, with a french speaking owner, and perfect coffee.

We saw the weather was getting a bit cloudy so we headed to Domodossola as fast as we could and by the time we got there we were convinced that camping is out of the question for the evening. Luckily we found a motel, and got down to business: eating and drinking.



























And later, for the others, some of this:

And that's about what we did next day too. With the exception of having some REAL italian pizza. I had a special, with pig fat (Lardo for the connaiseurs).
The rain was amazing. It just poured like it was the apocalypse, for two days.

We decided that two nights in the same hotel was enough, so we had to go regardless of the weather next day. I bought a pair of rain pants, so I was prepared.
At checkout, it turned out that the famous Italian lack of technology was everpresent. The credit card terminal was dead "because there were a lot of transactions yesterday" , according to the receptionist, who spoke nothing else than italian. I was forced to take a ride in his car, dressed in full race leathers, in Italian summer weather , to find an ATM, in order to pay our bill.
Going to Italy ? bring cash ..

Day 4

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Again, full of expectation, I woke up early and started fantisizing about the road ahead. Radu and Caroline eventually showed up at Dominique's appartment, we had some breakfast, and went off to Chamonix. After a painfully slow drive through Geneva centre, and a loong stop, we finally managed to hit the freeway and head towards Chamonix. Once there, it was picture time.

I had the luck to catch Mont Blank without any clouds. Chamonix is a beautiful little village, with some amazing views.

Radu (right) poses with the glacier water.

Radu's wife Caroline hides in my shadow. I could make some money that way with my large profile ..

If the mountain doesn't come to Mohammed, well than Mohammed is going to have to ride his bike to the mountain.

Dominique would rather hold his son than attack a juicy steak. The first 15 minutes or so..  after that, the son went to mummy and he started thinking about nutrition again.

Before we left, we heard some screams from the glacier river. Some people were having a manhood ritual in the zero degree water.

One last shot of Mont Blanc, and we're off to conquer the mountains. First was the Great St Bernard Pass, where the monks still breed the St Bernard dogs, which by the way look nothing like the original short haired ones, which look a lot like Grand Danois. St Bernard pass was amazing. Arid, bumpy, narrow, and with an amazing view at the top.

On the camera side you're on Swiss territory, and on the other side is Italy. Of course, since it was after 17:00 PM, the customs office was closed, so we just rolled by.

I got screwed buying the water, it was 8,5 CHF, about 7€ for 1 liter, and the water from the sink probably tasted a lot better.

At the bottom of the pass, a nice Italian camping appeared, so we pulled in. I managed to crack my intercom, so my friend Radu started glueing and duct-taping it. In the mean time I got some beers and opened the manual for my newly purchased tent, which by the way didn't even hold for 5 minutes. The floor broke, and you could see the sky through the seems. I was lucky it didn't rain ..

Above: at the Italian camping

Below: Broken tent

We had some dinner at the neighbourhood restaurant, accompanied by some beers. Nice way to end the evening.

We met a nice Swiss guy, Alex, who coached us a bit. Where to go, where not to go. Great stuff, since we didn't really know what was a "must-see". Thanks Alex !

Day 3

Full of expectation, I took off early from Wurzburg, and headed to Schaffhausen, the border with Switzerland. I found another stretch of crappy Autobahn, with those bumps coming every 5 meters or so, so everything was shaking. I didn't even have to breathe, the shaking pushed the air in and out of my lungs. Funny feeling. Next time I'm taking the Autozug, for sure.

 

I got to Geneva exactly on time. Even though I respected the speed limit (which I usually don't) the average speed was way higher than in Germany. The picture above shows the Lake Geneva promenade. I took some pictures, then laid down on the lawn to wait for my friends from France to arrive. 

I probably saw over 20 supercars go by in an hour on this road. 

Leaned against the fence, I took off my boots and let my socks dry. The weather was warm, dry, and summery. Exactly what I needed, some relaxation, some soaking in the summer which I almost never get to do back home in Sweden.

Time flies, and my friends eventually arrived. So did my friend Dominique, a Genevan by now, and our host for the evening. After some logistics we eventually got to sit down and suck on some heinekens, to make up for the lost fluids on the freeway.

Day 1

 Rode as fast as I dared through Denmark, and started to get some rain half way. After about 30km I pulled over and put on my rain jacket (which by the way was meant to walk the dog with, not drive in rain).

Why did I go in leathers when I have Gore-Tex gear ??
Here I'm at Rödby waiting to be let on board the ferry

First meal of the day, sandwich and a mouthfull of water. Gotta go in the tax-free store and get something for little Eva which probably expects something FUN after the 1kg lollipop from last time. I was soaked. It felt like I pissed in my pants, but I hoped my ass would dry in Germany. Literally..

The Autobahn sucked ass as usual. Roadwork everywhere, caravans, everyone is on the move, and the average speed is about 60 km/h.
Of course, I didn't have any € with me, so I had to pee in the bushes.

Met some handy guy who converted his ZZR1400 into a 3-wheeler, what a nice piece !. This was the second food, gas, water and nicotine stop. Another Red Bull, and back in the saddle. No time to waste here.

I eventually reached Wurzburg, and the last 200 km were done in the true autobahn style , with a 190 km/h average speed. My ass was hurting so I was sitting sideways for a couple of minutes at a time, my neck muscles were in pain, so I rested my elbows against my knees, and I felt like I was in that game, Wipeout. Strange feeling. Good thing almost noone was in my way the last bit.

I finally arrived and was greeted with cold beer, shots, and more cigarettes. The greetings went on till the morning hours .. I woke up some time in the morning, in panic, didn't know where I was, and had to pee. I saw absolutely nothing, I was BLIND. Or something. I fumbled several times around the room trying to find the door, and finally found it, just to enter a pitch black corridor with more doors. It seemed like forever, but I finally found the toilet ..

Day two I rested my ass and put my mouth to work. I sampled the fine bavarian cuisine and brews untill nightfall, and added a mix of Linux, Iphone hacking and cheap talk.

Back from second vacation

Yes, I'm back from Mumin World. Alive .. barely though, just about survived the stroller invasion ..
Blogging from Switzerland just wasn't an option during to the extremely expensive data roaming charges, at 80 SEK per megabyte, so I'll have to do it piece by piece now that I'm back in front of my computer.

I'll do the first days tomorrow, right now it's time after another glass of brandy after a 7 hours drive home from Stockholm.

Glosslockner

I wonder if we make it to Heiligenblut and Glosslockner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiligenblut

Adding some finishing touches

One thing really nice to have is a 12V electrical outlet , just in case you want to light a cigarette when you stop for gasoline .

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Preparation week

Ok. What do I still have to do to be prepared ? So far I've been tinkering with the plan since December 2010, and I'm still in a beta stage. Well, a working beta.
Need to:
- change rear tire
- try packing
- try mounting the luggage
- print waypoint list and seal it in plastic.
- go through packing list
- pour a glass of whiskey (CHECK)

The raw itinerary

Actually I couldn't fit more waypoints into the map since the alphabet doesn't have any more letters.
You can find the source for the waypoints here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_passes_of_the_Alps


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