Italian Lakes trip

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Jo

Jo

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Cologne, NRW Germany
I'm back from an entertaining six-day trip to the Italian lakes. That alone wouldn't be anything special, but we made the trip on motorcycles that were between 53 (Norton), 51 (Laverda), and 49 (BMW) years old. So nothing extraordinary particular on this forum …


We started in Pfunds in northwestern Austria:

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From there we went over the Flüela:

54568933803_58ccbfc32a_b.jpg




… and Davos into the Hinterrhein Gorge through the Viamala:

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… to the San Bernardino.


Unfortunately, it was closed and we were bugged and were about to buy three vignettes already. There was a kiosk at the northern entrance to the tunnel, and the lady there explained to us that we could use the motorway and the tunnel w/o vignettes until the next exit if the pass was closed.

Quick side note: You only buy a vignette (40 CHF) if you want to use the Swiss motorway. It's valid for the respective calendar year.


Here we still discuss, you can see the "pass closed" sign above the taillight of my Laverda:

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So we passed with no extra cost, but using the tunnel instead of the pass wasn't really the point.




1st days destination was Cannobio on Lake Maggiore – simply beautiful and always worth a trip!

54569013496_756163bc89_c.jpg


To be cont’d
 
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On day 2, we wanted to visit some sights in the area. For example, in the Valle Verzasca, home to the world's highest dam, famous as the backdrop for 'Golden Eye':

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Further up the valley the 'Ponte dei Salti', which, together with the rocks formed over time in the Verzasca River, creates a breathtaking ensemble:

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Unfortunately, we’d forgotten that it was a long weekend and that we’re dealing with incredibly large crowds of tourists (ok, we were some ourselves).



So we decided to skip the visit to the Church of San Giovanni Battista in Mogno in the Maggia valley ...
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_San_Giovanni_Battista,_Mogno)
Chiesa-di-Mogno-13533-full-HD.jpg





... and continued towards Centovalli:

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At breaks, often other motorcyclists approached us with comments about our bikes - this happens less often with new equipment. A Frenchman summed it up perfectly with „Trois Motos tres belles“ ...

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We ended the evening back in Cannobio again.

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The next day, we would take the ferry to the other side of Lake Maggiore heading for Lake Como.



To be cont’d
 
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You do have some amazing roads to travel on over there Jo. Some stunning photos. Reminds me of some of the places I rode through on my grand tour with my Jota in 2019. Hopefully you haven’t used all your holidays up Jo and I’ll see you in Breganze again.😊👍
Tom
 
ozijotati said:
You do have some amazing roads to travel on over there Jo. Some stunning photos. Reminds me of some of the places I rode through on my grand tour with my Jota in 2019. Hopefully you haven’t used all your holidays up Jo and I’ll see you in Breganze again.😊👍
Tom
Click to expand...

Thanks Tom! Remember your epic trip in 2019 well. As far as holidays are concerned - I'm a pensioner and only accountable to myself (and my wife) ... 😀 :cool:
 
Day 3

We took the ferry Intra – Laveno, which meant a bit of stress for our Norton friend. It’s just not funny, to kickstart this beast to life, particular when dealing with a healthy high compression engine, when others in the queue are impatient ‘cause they feel blocked in rolling on the ferry.

In Laveno it was our beemer friend who stopped with one cylinder not working. We checked the HT-leads w/o success, but new sparks did the trick:

54570476176_1c817a93c9_b.jpg



Another story we could put in our records as “repairs in the most picturesque places in Europe …” as my friend Jürgen would say.




We continued through the hinterland to Lake Lugano:

54569034025_a19a021d7f_c.jpg




Then again up in the hills to visit the Balcone d’Italia which we couldn’t reach due to road works and strictly acting personnel (very uncommon in Italy). While we used this for a short break, my BMW mate leaned his beemer elegantly on some roots:

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Once again, we took the ferry - on the approach of beautiful Varenna:

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Our destination for the day was above Varenna.



To be cont’d
 
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Great pics and write up! You were more fortunate than I was a few weeks ago doing some parts of your trip, with a week of rain, rain and more rain....

Gerald
 
Nice! Looks like a great improvement (and looks impressive, too). Like the Norton, too, my (late) uncle had one (non standard, alu tank, etc) and I still have a photo in my hallway of 2 year old me and my dad on that bike.
 
Day 4


This time we're staying in a vacation rental and had to go to a bar for breakfast. All in all, everything was very straightforward (as mostly) in Italy:

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Beautiful landscape above Varenna over Lake Como:

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Then we cont'd east into the hinterland north of Bergamo. We wanted to go from Lake Como via San Pellegrino to Lake Iseo, from there to Lake Idro, and then past Lake Ledro to Lake Garda. As it is mentioned in the title - Italian lakes trip ...

I hadn't visited the area east of lake como before and was very excited. Well, we weren't disappointed!




The first rest stop was at Passo Culmine di San Pietro:

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After passes like the Zambla ..:

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... we headed to the Crocedomini. On the way there, I was able to fill up my water bottle from the waterfall:

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Crocedomini, the Norton is launched:

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The destination of the fourth day of riding was Limone sul Garda, where the motorcycles had just as beautiful a view as we did from our hotel rooms:

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To be cont’d
 
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Jo you have to stop posting these wonderful photos!
They are triggering me, forcing me to mope, remembering that fabulous ride we took, from Langenfeld to Breganze, last July.
 
This looks like a great trip!



Jo said:
Day 3

We took the ferry Intra – Laveno, which meant a bit of stress for our Norton friend. It’s just not funny, to kickstart this beast to life, particular when dealing with a healthy high compression engine, when others in the queue are impatient ‘cause they feel blocked in rolling on the ferry.

In Laveno it was our beemer friend who stopped with one cylinder not working. We checked the HT-leads w/o success, but new sparks did the trick:

54570476176_4374b824e1_b.jpg


Another one we could put in our records as “repairs in the most picturesque places in Europe …” as my friend Jürgen would say.




We continued through the hinterland to Lake Lugano:

54569034025_a19a021d7f_c.jpg




Then again up in the hills to visit the Balcone d’Italia which we couldn’t reach due to road works and strictly acting personnel (very uncommon in Italy). While we used this for a short break, my BMW mate leaned his beemer elegantly on some roots:

54568708206_7505e28933_z.jpg




Once again, we took the ferry - on the approach of beautiful Varenna:

54568932703_ba09c3dffb_b.jpg






Our destination for the day was above Varenna.



To be cont’d
Click to expand...
 
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