Mountain Road

Holiday 2019 Gozamite & Finrin Day 13

Posted by gozamite on 20.8.2019

Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, Mountain Road, S1000XR. Tagged: Cesky Krumlov, Postalmstraße, Vltava river. Leave a comment

This guesthouse was one of the nicest places where we spent the night. Especially the breakfast was very nice!

But after breakfast we were riding again. First we took the road 311 down in the walley and then we turned north following the Dientenbach river. This road is very nice as the river runs deep in the walley but it’s not very long… and then we took the “Hochkönig Road” to east. This road was first climbing to Mühlbach am Hochkönig -skicenter & village and then going down with very nice sweeping corners! Then it was road 159 north following the Salzach river (and A10 Autobahn) and then Lammertal Straße to east towards Postalmstraße. This is a tollroad with 5€ payment. The speedlimit is 40 and it’s almost like going back to middle-age… The phone network wasn’t working and there was cows everywhere!

Right after this panoramic road we had Traunsee…

And then the mountains were gone! I had little bit sad feelings even we had quite nice countryside roads after the mountains. I was thinking: “Ok, we will see Tatra mountains in the north part of Czech republic but that’s about all…” Luckily there was some nice places still to make a short stop…

I had made the route to go over Vltava river in a ferry (Frydava-Frymburk). This was 4€ (Euros were just fine to use as payment!)

Then we arrived at Cesky Krumlov and I had made a booking in the middle of the old town!! It’s not very wice because you can’t ride there at all! But after few tricks we had our stuff in our room and the bike was parked outside the old town… Here’s few pictures of the beautiful old town (Click any of the pics to see them bigger!):

There is absolutely enough of restaurants in this city! We didn’t choose the best one but it wasn’t too bad either… This town I can easily recommend to anyone. You should visit there!
Our 288km route for today was like this:

Holiday 2019 Gozamite & Finrin Day 12

Posted by gozamite on 15.8.2019

Posted in: BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, Mountain Road, S1000XR. Tagged: grossglockner, Lago di Misurina, Passo di Giau. Leave a comment

The most amazing riding day in our tour!
We started by climbing to Passo di Giau From the west.

Passo di Giau is well known about the views at the top!

From Giau we rode down to Cortina d’Ampezzo and from there straight up to Passo tre Croci (at 1809 meters) that doesn’t go down very fast on the east side! There you will have first beautiful Lago di Misurina at 1754 meters and then Lago di Landro at 1400 meters. Beside these lakes there are also many hotels and restaurants. We took a short pause at Misurina with some sweet roll and lemonade.

Then it was time to ride to the next country: Austria!
Almost right after we crossed the border I took the left-turn to a “secret mountain road” that not too many know about! Usually everyone is riding straight from Toblach (Italy) to Lienz (Austria) and then choosing the Grossglockner. But we took this “Pustertaler” first.

Then after riding a quite long way from the city of Lienz to the south-end of Grossglockner -We were finally there! I’ve been here twice before… (almost). 2014 we took the road from south and it was raining until Hochtor tunnel. Luckily from there we made the northside in good weather.
In 2017 we came from north and it was raining too much! We decided to turn back. But now the weather was perfect!! Maybe it was little bit cold (about +10 celsius near the Glacier) but it didn’t bother us at all!! We got many nice pictures there!!

Click any of the pictures to see them bigger!
We found a place to stay from Taxenbach village. The guesthouse was nice but we didn’t find a good restaurant from this small village. Our 240km route for this day was like this:

Holiday 2019 Gozamite & Finrin Day 10

Posted by gozamite on 9.8.2019

Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, Mountain Road, S1000XR, Video. Tagged: Croatia, Italy, Mangart, Mountain Road, Slovenia. Leave a comment

And day 9 when we didn’t ride at all. After breakfast we took a walk to the local cross-hill. It was about 2 kilometers walk to this place and the air was already very hot! After few hundred meters I fell… Just took a wrong step and I was on my knees in the pavement. Luckily I was able to take the hit to the pavement mostly with my hands but I got this anyway to my knee:

Here’s the cross that we saw on the hill. It’s about 10-12 meters high!

We planned to visit one cave but there was a risk of thunder… So we went only to the beach to enjoy the clear water of Adriatic sea!

Day 10 we started the ride back home (kind of)…
First we took the curvy road up to the mountains and closer to Slovenia. This road has long history as the Lousiana -one of the most significant roads in Austria-Hungary already back in 19th century. The highest point was near Mrzle Vodice village at 928 meters.

Then we were in Slovenia! The temperature was much cooler since we were quite high -maybe about 500 meters above sea level. The road was quite nice ride until we rode under the Highway that goes southwest from Ljublana. After that the road was totally amazing!! Our route reached the road 102 and after Godovič there was totally crazy part where the road was following the canyon river and the walls were climbing high on both sides.

Under this Viaduct we took few pictures but mostly we were totally amazed by the views (and didn’t take any pictures!)
Then our route turned to the northeast and we were following the Soca river until we turned to Mangart.

Mangart

After this rainy experience we’re again in Italy and we stayed in skiresort hotel in Sella Nevea village. The views were totally amazing and luckily we just took a short walk after the dinner before it started raining.

The 290km’s route for this day:

Holiday 2019 Gozamite & Finrin Day 7

Posted by gozamite on 31.7.2019

Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, East Europe, Hungary, Matkustus, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, Mountain Road. Tagged: Eurotour, Hungary, Lake Balaton, Lake Heviz, Thermal Lake. Leave a comment

Balaton & Heviz
Decided to take a little bit easier day now. We rode only 170 kilometers: First to the Lake Balaton and then to Lake Heviz.
We came to the lake Balaton straight to the Tihany peninsula (actually I don’t know what the peninsula is called but this Tihany village is there anyway!)

From the south-end of Tihany you can take the ferry to the other side of the lake. It seemed that the ferry was full all the time! (but I didn’t check the price…)
I tried to find the highest possible place (or road) from Badacsony Vulcano to see the the views to the lake.

Where’s the mountain?

There is quite many nice photos that people have been taking from that mountain… But this one is simply the BEST!
In the forest we saw some instructions how to move and behave there in the mountain… Hungarian should be a relative language to Finnish but I didn’t understand anything!!

Because it was quite hot day -maybe something like +32 celsius, we started to think what would be a nice place to cool down a little bit?
We found this nice lake to take a swim:

Lake Heviz is the biggest thermal lake in the world. The water temperature is +32 celsius! We had a hotel room just beside this Lake/ Spa… In out holiday this was maybe one of the “biggest tourist attractions” with such a many people everywhere.
The route for this day was like this:

Holiday 2019 Gozamite & Finrin Day 6

Posted by gozamite on 30.7.2019

Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Matkustus, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, Mountain Road. Tagged: BMW S1000XR, Danube, Ferry, Hrad Somoska, Hungary, Slovakia. Leave a comment

Riding south from Poprad over the Lower Tatra mountains was great! The road had some very nice corners all the time. After the “big road” 66 we took the “smaller road” 531 and that was a little bit bumpy -but still a great ride for a motorcycle.

Chmarošský Viadukt was just before we took the road 531

After mountains our route was more about small road from one village to another. But then we rode through this:

And soon we had another border to cross… We entered Hungary (6th country).

We took the small roads after the border to this castle. We left the bike to Hungary and we walked all the way back to Slovakia (!!!) to this castle. That was about 200 meters…
Then we still had one river to cross… The Danube river! And we did it with a ferry. We took the ferry from Nagymaros to Visegrad and the price was 1000 (!!!) -local currency and it’s about 3€.

After 344 kilometers riding we took the nice room from a guesthouse in a small Csakvar village. They had also very nice restaurant but they made a BIG mistake with breakfast! Here is the route for day 6:

Nice Trip (Day 3)

Posted by gozamite on 22.11.2018

Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, Mountain Road, Video. Tagged: Alpes Maritima, BMW F700GS, Cote d'Azur, F700GS, French Alps, Verdon Canyon, Verdon Gorge. Leave a comment

We woke up quite early and went to the breakfast. We saw from the News that it had been snowing in France (in northern parts) -There was hundreds of cars stuck in some highway. Weather forecast promised us a beautiful sunny day so I wasn’t worried…
F700GS started after 9am and we were heading west/ northwest. First stop was at Col de Vence. The views to the mediterranean sea were very nice when we were climbing up. But on the top we couldn’t see the sea any more. The nature was interesting -especially the rocks!

Col de Vence has own webpages. It’s because people have seen quite a lot of paranormal activity here. Stories has been collected in coldevence.com.

Soon after this mountain Pass it was time to stop again. This is the beautiful village of Coursegoules.

Even the sun was shining it didn’t feel too warm…

Short stop after Andon, temperature was about +4

Few kilometers before our final destination it was about the time to stop again. There was a beautiful view to the village Trigance.

From here started maybe the most amazing 80km’s of my life!!

7 kilometers from this view was another view. This time the road was on the edge of Verdon Gorge! It was about 250 meters down to the river Verdon… At one spot there was a balcony (viewing place) to look down -There I almost fainted! Last time this happened to me in 2013 in Dalsnibba (Norway).

The Canyon of Verdon is one of the most spectacular river canyons in Europe. On the northside it is 700 meters deep!
On the northside of the canyon there is a looproad starting from the Village La Palud-sur-Verdon. This is about 25km’s of spectacular views -not recommended for those who has the fear of heights!
In one viewing point we even had eagles flying over our heads!!

It took about 3 hours all together to ride both the south and the northside of Verdon Gorge. Then it was time to ride back to Nice!
On the way back we chose the big roads… But it didn’t mean that we didn’t see anything special… Just it wasn’t as good as that Canyon!
Here is the video my wife made about this day:

The route for this day was like this:

Nice Trip (Day 2)

Posted by gozamite on 20.11.2018

Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, motorcycling, Mountain Road. Tagged: BMW F700GS, Cote d'Azur, F700GS, French Alps, GS Adventure. Leave a comment

After very good sleep and breakfast we took a morning walk in a little bit wet streets of Nice. Rue de Rivoli was the direction about 2km’s away. There was MotorBikeTrip store where I had reservation for bike (3 days) -This was the bike:
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BMW F700GS
I didn’t ride this bike too much before and I have to say that the suspension is not good enought for 2. But I tried to adjust the preload tighter so that it wouldn’t hit the bottom all the time… Then we changed the full riding gear and started riding!
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It was still little bit wet in 500 meters high Col d’Eze between Nice and Monaco.
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In Menton the beach Boulevard is called The Sunny Promenade -but we had a little bit of rain…

We were standing in the mediterranean beach for awhile and I made a video there.
From Menton we started to climb up to the Mountains. I have been riding here before but back in 2016 it was too hot! Now it was quite nice weather.
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This bridge is a part of an old tramline between Menton and Sospel. Tram was in use from 1912 to 1930. This bridge is called “Viaduc du Caramel”.
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We stopped at Sospel to take few pictures. This made me think how sad it is when every place is now closed. No open cafeterias or restaurants… These cities and villages live only in the summertime.
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Climbing up to Col de Turini… Beautiful nature everywhere!
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Up on the top of of Turini it was raining quite heavily and we were inside the cloud.
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The visibility wasn’t too good!
Luckily under the clouds we could see some more… But the rain didn’t stop.
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The steep mountain walls of this area are amazing… even on a foggy weather! This is Col Saint-Roch.

Route for the day 1 was like this:

My wife made a nice video about this day:

Corsetour Day 16

Posted by gozamite on 27.8.2017

Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Ducati, Matkustus, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle, motorcycling, Mountain Road, S1000XR, touringbike. Tagged: Denmark, Ferry, Fredrikshavn, Sculptures. Leave a comment

Motorcycling in Denmark? Yes -we are going to do it!! There are no hills or corners here… Or at least we think this is how it will be. First in morning it was raining a bit. We had the rainsuits on until the halfway… After 2 hours we reached “Tørskind Grusgrav” -it’s a sculpture park with massive pieces of art made of iron, concrete and wood.
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I was here before 19 years ago and still I think these are amazing works!
Quite soon after this we started climbing to the 3rd highest mountain of Denmark! There are no steep uphills, no hairpin corners, no views to the mountains… Maybe you just noticed that there was a low uphill while you were riding… and there it was! Quite nice place to climb to the tower and see the countryside all around you (The tower of “Ejer Bavnehøj” is only 13 meters high)
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Then later in the afternoon we had one ferry (again!). This it was over the fjord that goes through all Northern Denmark and makes the northern part of this country kind of island!
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We arrived to our hotel in Fredrikshavn quite early so we had some time to walk around the beautiful city and eat the dinner.
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The route for the day 16 was like this:

Corsetour Day 12

Posted by gozamite on 20.8.2017

Posted in: actioncamera, BMW, Ducati, helmetcamera, Make life a ride!, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, motorcycling, Mountain Road. Tagged: Corsetour, Mountainroad, Schwäg. Leave a comment

We will leave the alps today… Kind of makes me sad but actually we’ve had so much nice alpineroads that I’m waiting for everything that is about to come…
We started riding from our hotel in Davos and filled the tank in Davos Wolfgang (it’s a kind of mountain pass near Davos).
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Then we took the road 28 to west and finally arrived to Maienfeld. From there we took the nice road (St. Lutzisteigpass) to Lichtenstein.

We took a short break there in a gas-station and then we continued back to Switzerland.
The route we took is not possible to put in the google map, but it was a nice ride! A very narrow road through mountain-countryside in the westside of Grabs (if you just look the map you’ll get the idea!).

Then after some more riding to west it was time for our last mountainpass: Schwägalppass -This road doesn’t have too tight hairpin corners and for the locals it really was the route to check the limits of the bike and the rider!
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But not us, we were ridig easy and smooth…

After Schwägalp it was about riding the countryside roads first in Switzerland then in Germany. And just about 50km’s left we got some heavy rain too… But even before we found the place to stay for the nigh (In Hotel Gut Lauterbad near Freudenstadt) the roads were already dry.
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This hotel and restaurant is very much recommended for those who are very hungry!! The portions were huge!! This is for 2…
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The route for the day was about like this (Google maps will not show the route on the westside of Grabs)

Corsetour Day 8

Posted by gozamite on 4.8.2017

Posted in: actioncamera, BMW, BMW motorrad, Ducati, helmetcamera, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycling, Mountain Road, S1000XR, Travel. Tagged: Corsetour, Corsica, island, Mediterranean. Leave a comment

This day is impossible to show in the map! Googlemap doesn’t simply show any routes that follows D81b (From Galeria to Calvi) but this is the route we took and we really enjoyed it!!

First we stopped for a swim in the lonely beach! There were other people too but really not too many! Then we kind of separated… I found a castle that was very interesting!
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There was a group of tourists listening on a guy who was talking and talking… But finally I got some information that this was a castle of Pierre Bonaparte who was a “ruler” of a Corsica for awhile.

Little bit north from this castle there was also a Chapel in a very beautiful area. There was also a beautiful road to this chapel with a huge helmet!
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Besides these the road D81b offered very beautiful views to the sea in many places!!
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In Calvi we chose pizzeria to eat something -it was one of the best pizzas is this tour. In the evening we choose a restaurant near our hotel -it was a beautiful place but for me the salad was very bad choice! (Restaurant Grill Ponte Vecchiu is recommended by my friends but not by me!)
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