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(Note-You can click each picture to see a larger picture, then use your web-browser's Back button to return to this page. This page also contains the link to several other pictures we took on our trip.)
On August 20, 2004 Bob and I left on vacation to tour Europe on motorcycles. Many of you know that we had been over there 5 years ago on a motorcycle tour (click here for more details of that tour) with Bosenberg Motorcycle Excursions. We went back this year to tour the French and Swiss Alps with Bosenberg again. Not only was it a Dream Vacation before but this was the “Best of the Best”.
You ask, “What made it so great?” There were a number of things: knowing what to expect, knowing we would love the food, knowing the tour company guide and his wife, knowing the accommodations would be top notch, knowing the roads would be great for riding, and knowing that our Honda motorcycle rental would be trustworthy. We had nothing to worry about. Our luggage was transported each day to our hotel. All we had to do is get on the bike and ride each day. And that is what we did.
We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany
early on Saturday morning and we were met as we got off the plane by our tour
director and another couple on our tour who also just arrived in Germany. After a
couple days of resting at
our
hotel, looking at maps and
visiting downtown Mainz we picked up
our bikes on Monday morning. Then we got our
bikes ready to ride (putting on
my tank bag and Bob putting on his GPS unit) and we were off for a short
ride
up along the Rhine River. We each rented a Honda Deauville 650, which
is a small sport bike version of the ST1100.
The road along the Rhine River has many ferry boat locations to cross over to the other side. The average cost for a motorcycle was two euros. Each side of the river has a road running alongside of it. So to hop over to one side or the other was quite easy. Driving along you see lots of vineyards on the hillsides and occasional castles nestled in amongst the terrain. It is quite beautiful and the roads leading away from the river go through some steep valleys and curves.
The next day, Tuesday, we headed west hoping to reach the Mosel River. But rain delayed us for 2 hours, so we cut our trip short and headed back to Mainz for our pre-tour briefing, introduction to our tour group and our first evening meal together. We had two other couples in our tour, one each from Arkansas and Florida.
Each morning we started with our morning tour briefing at 9:00 am. Then we left about 10:15 am for our next destination. You have the option of riding with the tour director, Leon, or riding on your own. With our small group of 5 bikes and 7 people we pretty much rode together each day. The advantage of riding with Leon is that he knows the back roads, alternate routes around cities, the language and customs, and the best lunch stops. He even custom designed our trip to meet the needs and wants of the riders. His wife, Elly, drives the van with our luggage to the next hotel.
Our first day out as a group took us south down through
Germany. We passed through vineyards, the
German Wine Gate between Germany and
France, lots of farmland, small rural towns, one lane roads and these vines
growing up these big tall poles. We found out that these vines were hops, used
to make beer. There were plenty of round-a-bouts and cobblestone streets.
After lunch we had a little rain, but were blessed later on with a
double
rainbow. Andlau, France was our first night destination with a stay at the
Hotel Kastelberg. Our three course dinner included veal and was specially prepared
by the owner/chef of the hotel, who happens to own a Harley.
Day two had rain, mist, rain and more rain. It made for a long day and everybody was tired, cold, wet and hungry by the time we got to Murten, Switzerland and our hotel. But we rode on some great roads today leading into Switzerland. On one back country road we had a cow standing in the middle of the road “eyeing” each bike as it went by. And Leon warned us in our pre-tour briefing about those cows that "give you the eye!” At one rest stop we saw snails, bigger than golf balls, hanging to blades of grass. For our four course meal that evening, Bob chose the salmon and I had pork chops.
We woke to sunshine this morning and had some time to shop and tour Murten after our morning briefing. Murten is a walled city and sits next to a beautiful lake. Our ride today took us to Megeve, France and into the French Alps region. It was a more mountainous region and we saw our first snow capped mountains today. We also started to see more motorcycles and even a couple Gold Wings. We stayed in Megeve for 3 nights and we had free days to tour the French Alps. Our dinner the first night in Megeve was a fancy four course meal with a great dessert buffet. Today turned out to be the start of a full week of sunny skies.
Bob and I went on this tour to ride and that is what we
did. The next day we rode 8 different passes. Col de Aravis and Col de la
Forclaz were our favorite passes and both of these are run in the Tour de France
bike race. On the top of Forclaz there were lots of hang gliders floating about
and the view of Lake Annecy below was awesome! The color and depth of the lake
was indescribable. It doesn’t get any better than this! After getting back to
the hotel and cleaning up we walked downtown to shop and have dinner. We sat
outside at a little pizzeria and while doing so a wedding party rode through the
streets in horse drawn carriages.
Our second rest day in Megeve, was more of the same,
riding. Continental breakfast at most of the
hotels on the tour included
cereal, lots of different breads, yogurt, variety of cheeses, cold meats, fruit
and juice. Today we traveled over towards the Mont Blanc area and went up to a
ski resort opposite of Mont Blanc. Then we were on
to some smaller passes. Bob’s GPS came in handy a couple times getting
through the towns and finding the smaller back roads. After our return to the
hotel we did carry-out for dinner and ate in our room while we watched the
Olympics on television. We took some
great pictures during our two days of touring the French Alps.
We left France and the French Alps and traveled into Italy. We had more beautiful roads and mountain passes as well as a great lunch stop. Our only night stay in Italy was in Saare, a city near Aosta. Once we got into Sarre, Bob and I went on to Breuil Cervino which is the highest road up to the southern view of the Matterhorn. It added an additional 110 km to our days total and took us up to 2015 km in altitude. That evening we had a wonderful Italian dinner with bread, soup, spaghetti, salad, roast beef, potatoes, vegetables, ice cream and “lemon liquour”. Once again it was prepared special by the owner’s family just for us.
Tuesday we left Italy and crossed into Switzerland at the
Col du Grand St. Bernard pass. It was cool and cloudy at the top, as
you were in the clouds. This is the pass where they had the St. Bernard
dogs and the story of them saving lives in the winter. This fall (after we
returned) we learned on ABC News that the dogs were to be removed because the monks could no
longer afford to keep
them. However, Leon has told us that the dogs may be sold to a dog raising
farm in Martigny and leased back to the monks for use on the pass. So
hopefully there still will be St. Bernard dogs on the St. Bernard pass. We also had time for a nice
group shot just outside of Sarre.
So up and down we traveled through the mountains with our destination being Brienz. We saw orchards today that had apples, pears, nectarines and grapes of course and some beautiful rose hedges. Our coldest pass was yet to come. As the day went on, we had to pass over Grimsel Pass to get to Brienz and our hotel. It was really cold and foggy at the top. At times it seemed that you couldn’t see but two feet in front of you. Boy did I wish I had my electric gloves on then. But we all made it down and Bob and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner of horse sirloin steak. (Makes you look at a horse differently!)
The next day was a free day. We had been in Brienz before, so we knew some of the area. We went out riding in the morning and took more pictures. In the afternoon we walked downtown and did some shopping. For dinner we joined our group plus a couple from Little Canada, Minnesota who we knew. We had talked to them about taking a tour to Europe after our first tour in 1999. They did Leon’s tour in 2001 and were back this year, renting bikes and doing their own tour. It was great reminiscing about past rides and tours.
After Brienz we headed back to Germany and
stayed the
night in Titisee-Neustadt. Our tour was about
to
end. We had two days of riding through the countryside and through the
Black Forest left. In Titisee-Neustadt we spent some time doing some power
shopping. When we were there five years ago we did not buy a black forest cuckoo
clock--this time we did. We had the clock shipped to us and now it
hangs in our kitchen.
The following day we made a special stop just for me, so I could have my Black Forest
Chocolate Cherry Cake. Five years ago when we stopped at this little roadside
restaurant, they were all sold out of the cake. So I made it a point to let
Leon know I had to have my cake this time. So we had our lunch stop and I had
my cake. Mmmm Mmmm Good!
Our tour ended in Frankfurt, where it all began. We stayed the final night at a hotel just across the street from the Airport. The time went way too fast, which tells you we had a GREAT trip. Our ride on the Autobahn A5 on the way to Frankfurt was filled with the normal freeway congestion of a Friday afternoon with traffic, slow downs, red lights and the “Polizei”. The evening ended with our farewell dinner. Once again we did a trip of a lifetime.
On the average we rode 235 km per day. We did ride the autobahn where we got up to 140 kph, which is about 85 mph. Our bikes got anywhere between 56-67 mpg. Converting the gas from liters to gallons and the euro to U.S. dollars, gas prices were about $6.00 per gallon. In total we rode over 2750 km for the 12 days that we had our bikes. We did 31 different mountain passes in 4 different countries; Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland. Our digital camera took over 500 pictures, plus we received the digital pictures from one of the other couples on the tour.
Words cannot express the trip we had. It was wonderful, awesome, breathtaking, great, with superb three and four course meals, we met some great friends and people along the way, and the tour directors are very knowledgeable and fun. I’m ready to go again! So if there is something in life you want to do, do it now, don’t wait, because you don’t know what the future will hold. "Enjoy the Ride!"
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I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about our trip. Just send me an E-mail.
You can also read a short article I wrote on planning for a European
Motorcycle vacation.
You can also read about our first motorcycle vacation to
Europe.
