Italy part 3 - The Alps make an appearance

Vohrenback to Malles - 224 Miles  - 7th July

The theme of this day was that we would be aiming to get to Mandello. During the night the rain had hammered down so ferociously we had both woken up. Fortunately by the time we were ready to go, the roads had substantially dried. After an excellent breakfast we set off - but only about a mile up the road my left pannier came off at about 50 miles an hour. I had rushed leaving and forgot to fasten it properly. It had burst open and all my clothes were spread over the road for all the world to see! Thanks to Mr Hepco and Mr Becker, there was no serious damage and I just stuffed it all back in, locked the pannier to the bike as I usually do, and set off again. Heading south through the Black Forest the riding was great - roads were a smooth as a bowling green and very grippy. Quite a lot of bikes seen, not surprisingly many were big GS Beemers, but also the Africa Twin seems popular. A wrong turn was taken which involved us going along single lane road through a tiny village or so, before getting onto the right track. We stopped after a while at an outlook and realised that we were probably looking into Switzerland. A short ride later and the Swiss flag on a house announced this was our 5^th country in 3 days in Europe. Or maybe that guy was just patriotic? We crossed the Rhine at Shaffhausen and stopped to watch what is a pretty mighty river in a fearsome flow. I also took a picture of  a piece of graffiti that for me sums up why we do such trips….

We travelled through a Switzerland that was clearly very prosperous, and just as I had been told rather orderly and “cared for”. At one point we stopped at the side of the road and watched about 15 to 20 Red Kites thermalling on the hot air rising from the fields. I had never seen more than one at once…so this was a bit of a surprise. Another surprise was that NONE of my cards were accepted at the card pay pump machine. So Jeff had to bail me out. Oh yeah and Switzerland is expensive - probably more so than the UK, and noticeably more so than Germany. Our no motorway approach now led us to pass through a sixth country, Liechtenstein which at first seemed to have no point to it as we were passing through a congested city…well congested to us who had been sticking to the back roads for 3 days. Once clear of the town magnificent mountain vistas opened up, and I could actually enjoy Liechtenstein. Glorious green valley with a far view of snow covered peaks. 

And a large building with the name of Swiss ski jumping legend Simon Amman on it. We we back in Swiss territory now? I wasn’t sure - the borders are pretty wiggly around here. We sort of got a bit lost at this part as we climbed into the foothills and saw some spectacular mountains in the distance (which was probably Austria) and ended up going over a small pass, into a valley that was not the direction we wanted to go, and then having to retrace our route for a few miles or two over very narrow roads about as wide as the average Aussie driveway!

 Finally we crossed into Austria where I was able to buy fuel with my card, and where we were told we had to buy a carnet to ride on the motorway. We were not believed when we said that’s fine, we don’t use the motorway. Taking the back roads, that often parallel the main roads, in the town of  Braz I saw a young lady dressed in the full “Sound Of Music” outfit, complete with dirndls. I thought “that's nice - she must be a fan of retro stuff” until we came around a corner and it was wall to wall lederhosen and mountain milkmaids! Yes it was an OoomPah band competition there were hundreds probably thousands of people many bands ready to play. It would have been interesting to stay and watch, but we had to push on. We also noticed a lot of Halflinger light army trucks a few miles down the road - must have been a rally - I want one. Somewhere just near Landeck we got our first taste of real alpine riding, as roadworks pushed us into a one way little used mountain road, spectacular scenery, and milky blue fast flowing and no doubt bloody cold streams tumbled alongside the road. We stopped for a comfort break among a whole lot of timber, and drank water, soaked up the serenity (apart from the diverted traffic that is) and I saw what I thought was an eagle soaring between the peaks. The whole place was special and I could imagine living there for sure. In summer anyway! 

Pushing on through the outstanding mountain roads was no hardship at all. There was no desire to ride all that fast - the desire was to soak it all up. You don’t get a lot of Alpine scenery growing up in Gosford I can tell you!! Soon we approached the Italian border and then we rode alongside the gorgeous Lake Resia, and THEN……Jeff's bike failed to proceed. What a welcome to its homeland. It was the old main fuse problem, and luckily no damage had been done so a new fuse put us on our way again, however it was a niggle that's been present with this bike for years, and it has defied rational explanation. Cest la vie. We arrived in the village of Malles Venosta, or Mals in the Germanic dialect mostly spoken in those parts. After a while we found our way to the nights accommodation, called Agropobitzer, which apparently is a 2 star hotel. We stayed in the overflow accommodation right at the top of the stairs as usual, but in an excellent room with great views of the mountains. The dinner that night was very good, as was the conversation with the proprietor who was keen to point out he was in Italy, spoke a German dialect, but was 100% Tyrolean. His views on Brexit were that it was a bad idea - he wasn’t the first nor the last person to raise the topic with us.

All in all, barring the minor incident with Jeff's bike it had been a truly wonderful day. We hadn’t reached our goal of Mandello, but we would the next day and then what would we find?