This was the day when we finally entered the Alps and the route that I planned this whole trip (Route des Grandes Alpes). But before we actually got to ride the endless hairpin corners… we visited the Les Gorges du Pont du Diable.
This is a place where the river has been “digging” the limestone for millions of years. It’s not a cave but almost… The hole is 40 meters deep. It costs 6,10€ to take a 40 minutes tour with a guide and it really is worth every penny!!
It is amazing place! And it’s only 20 minutes from Thonon Les Bains.
Then the first climb we took was Col de la Colombiere which is 1614 meters high mountain pass near Cluses. Then we climbed Col des Aravis, it’s still not very high but it offers one of the best views to Mt. Blanc!
You can see the highest mountain in Europe from many places if you’re driving south of Col des Aravis.
Then we had Cormet de Roselend, which is almost 2000 meters (1968 meters), this offered already very spectacular views from the top!! Especially the Lake Roselend with the clear turquoise water is really worth to make a break and admire the view!
And finally we had the highest mountain pass in Europe in the afternoon: Col d’Iseran (2764 meters). The summit is still a lonely place! There’s no restaurant or no souvenir-shop just an old chapel made of stone… and I think they don’t even use that anymore!
There’s still old meters in the sign… It has been checked few years ago that the real hight is few meters lower!
When we rode down to Val d’Isere it started to get cloudy. We had one more climb to make since we had our accommodation in Italy (Moncenisio). We did see a little bit of of the Lake Mt Cenis, but after we crossed the border we had no visibility anymore! We’re riding in the clouds! And the road to the amazing Chalet Sul Lago was extremely narrow with the branches of the trees coming very low… it felt like a scene from a horror movie!! And finally when we found the place… it had a very pleasant surprise for us!
No, it is not a Michelin restaurant with any stars… But it is mentioned in the Michelin quite many times (as you can see!) -And yes the food was good!
Here is the route for the day 9.
After breakfast it was time to start riding again. My Tomtom Rider 410 showed us the way to the nearest gas station in Weil am Rhein… but what I didn’t remember in that point that in highway in Switzerland you’ll need the Vignette! And the nearest Shell was AFTER the border checkpoint in autobahn/ highway with only possible direction to Switzerland… Oops! (We decided that we are not going to buy the expensive Vignette -we would rather ride the small roads in Switzerland area).
After a short discussion with customs officer we were able to make nice move to the other side of the customs area and ride back to Germany… and soon after that ride through the city of Basel. That took about 1 hour! In the southside of Basel we actually got our first real mountain hairpin corners when we climbed to Passwang Pass (elevation 1204 meters). And we had the first break in the “summit cafeteria” (http://www.alpenblick-passwang.ch/).
The view to valley was amazing.
Then we had Grenchenberg! What an amazing ride it was! The road is so narrow (climb from the north) that it is simply impossible to overtake a car. And I was so kind that I stopped and wait for the other 2 riders… and we had to drive behind a car for a long time.
Just before the summit there was a place with lots of cars, tents and people… I don’t know if there was a some kind of special meeting or a camp(?) but it looked very strange! (In video 09:00). We had a nice break in the summit restaurant.
The southside road of Grenchenberg is not that narrow, there are even some busses driving… Then we entered Bern.
I was actually quite scared about riding through Bern! But it was Sunday early afternoon and there was not that much traffic. We did see the city center terminal of Bern and it was quite easy to ride through. From Bern we choose the road beside (and under) the highway to west as we headed to Lake Geneva. In the way we got some pretty nice views to the Lake of Gruyère (a reservoir).
Also the view to the Lake Geneva was amazing! I had planned the route to the beach Boulevard of Vevey, Clarens and Montreux… And that was a big mistake! There was annual Jazz Festival of Montreux going on… it took about 2 hours to ride that boulevard! (But we learned to do some nice splitting!) We did see the tents! And we heard some music! So I guess we can say that we were at the festival!
Finally after a long day we arrived in Thonon-Les-baines. It’s a city in French side of the Lake Geneva.
The route for this day was like this.
It had been raining during the night in Obersteinbach and the weather forecast promised us some more rain during the day. Right after the breakfast we visited Fleckenstein castle. It was actually good that it was raining since there were not too many people!
This castle is built on a steep and high rock and it was actually ruled by the same family Fleckenstein over 600 years!
There’s also halls and tunnels inside the rock!
The view from the top of the castle is great… But we had that rain and clouds everywhere!
After the visit in the castle we had a nice road from Lembach to Wissembourg, but the road was wet so it was no fun. Then we went over the border back to Germany and after a nice break in Baden-Baden we started to ride the Schwarzwaldstrasse. But it was all in the clouds, the road was wet and from time to time it was raining!
The south-end of the Black Forest road was closed so we choosed alternative route: The road to Allerheiligen. That was very fun ride! The rain had stopped and the road was actually almost dry!
Here’s a short video I took after the roads were complitely dry:
At the end of this wet day we arrived in Weil am Rhein (in Germany), it’s actually a triple-city with Saint-Louis in France and Basel in Swtzerland. Our hotel was just beside the border and we could see people making a line to get to Switzerland!
The reason for this is simple! After UK’s Brexit the € is so low that people from Basel come to Germany to make daily shopping!!
The route for the day 7 was like this!
We got 1 more rider to make this tour with us! He’s Timo and he rides Honda VFR 800, and it’s red too!
This days route was called “Lets get the real good look at River Mosel!” -And yes we did!
The route was like this! And we’re following the River Mosel all the way from Koblenz to Trier and then to Luxemburg… It was more than 230 km’s of River Mosel and those grapevine or wine bushes on the both sides of the river! I think that’s enough… Luckily we did ride something else too! In the last part of the route we had nice ride in Eppenbrunn!
And then finally the GPS found a route that it is even hard to find from the map!!!
This must be the MAIN ROAD from Germany to France!
We had accommodation in Obersteinbach, France. It was nice and “bohemian” just in the right way!
This was from Edersee to Bendorf (near Koblenz) like this. There was a risk of rain so we didn’t ride the whole tour Lake – Edersee. That area is very much recommended with nice roads all around!
In the half-way of this day we noticed that the Ducati’s chains are very loose! Luckily we found a car and motorcycle garage where they tightened the chains right away!
As we got closer to Koblenz there was a very nice road with multiple tight corners!
I let the Ducati ride first.
At first we rode through small roads to Beelitz-Heilstätten abandoned hospital. This is where A.Hitler had his testicles fixed (contoversal?) We checked few smaller buildings in the area. Little bit later we arrived in Zerbst/Anhalt -city and first we’re impressed by the middle-aged gate, but then we saw 2 high towers nearby. It was the ruins of old St. Nicolai church. It was such a beautiful place!
Soon after this city we crossed the river Elbe with Reaction ferry
So there’s no engine in this Ferry but still it takes you to the other side!
When our route took us to Harz-mountains it had been raining a little. So we had to ride the nice corners with wet road. Luckily at the end of the day we had some nice corners near Edersee area and it was dry there!
Here’s the route we took.
It was a big pity that we were so late in the Hotel Diadem in the south side of Chojnice. It was very nice small hotel with swimming pool inside.
We started riding about 9 am and it was quite boring day riding through Poland. But luckily I had chosen the small roads so we got some interesting surprises.
Here’s resting place with 3 cannons and 1 tank.
Big size and very rusty steam locomotive in the middle of Polish countryside. And beside it there was abandoned train station.
Here’s a picture of a typical Polish countryside road:
The road goes often between the trees and it’s nice on a sunny day because you’re in the shadows… And when you take the picture the sunny fields behind the trees looks like bright light celebration!
Then we took some time to get to know the Fortress in Kostrzyn nad Odrą. We walked on the walls and admired Germany on the other side of the river. We also checked the ruins and some of the catacombs that still remains in the area.
Made few mistakes! Planned a long route with 2 times crossing the Russian border… Ooops! But I’ll tell you later about it.
First there was a ride from Plinkses to Klaipeda harbour, and from there we took a ferry to Curonian Spit. Ferry costs 3,35€. And after we arrived the spit there was a roadtoll (5€/ bike). And we also had to pay the toll again in Russian side (that was a little bit more than 4€). The road in Curonian Spit is beautiful, it even has some corners and uphills-downhills.
We stopped in one beach to take some pictures of the Baltic ocean. We also stopped in Nida to buy something from the shop.
After Nida it was time for the first border check-Ins! These first check-Ins took about 1h 30mins! Then we’re in Russia!!
This is Amber museum in the center of Kaliningrad.
And this is the worlds biggest castle in Malbork Poland.
But before we could ride in Poland we had to cross the border again! The Russian side of the border was ok, (quite fast) but then the Poland side of the border-check was with a very long line!!! We had to wait more than 2 hours!!! What a catastrophe! We were so late in our accommodation! It was 9,30 pm and we started 8.30 am and there in the middle we moved from timezone to another…. so it was more than 14 hours of ride!!!
Note to myself:
– If you’re about to ride Curonian Spit, you better have 1 whole day to do it!
– If you’re about to cross the Russian border twice a day, don’t ever think it’d take 2-3 hours! It will take more!
The route was Kirkkonummi – Espoo – Helsinki – Tallinna – Pärnu – Riika – Saldus – Plinkses and about 500 kilometers like this! It was mostly big road and very boring day, the only merrier road was the Old Pärnu Road on the southside of Pärnu. There we also stopped ro take a swim in the Bay of Riga. The water was very warm!
Here is the parking area about 100m away from the sea. The day was HOT (about +30-32 celsius) so swimming was a very good idea!
This is a view from the resting area just outside Saldus -city. It was a Beautiful place.
Here is a picture of our MOST BEAUTIFUL hotel!
You can follow this trip in facebook (https://www.facebook.com/PVTourinki/), mostly in Finnish.
In instagram (https://www.instagram.com/gozamite/) and in moottoripyora.org forum (http://www.moottoripyora.org/keskustelu/showthread.php/289047-Parlez-Vous-TouRinki), only in Finnish!
And as you can guess the trip is called “Parlez-Vous TouRinki”!
GoZa Mite 