I've scarcely had enough time to scrape together a few riding days but I did make time to plan for a trip from Italy to Romania this summer. I started with ordering some planning materials:
A couple of my friends showed some interest; my friend Joe is retired and has all the time in the world. The other rider, Tim is a coworker and had never taken a multi-night trip. I got right after some planning, getting routes together and making initial contact with some hotels.
Tim and I planned a few days of riding in the Alp before meeting Joe on Monday, 4 July. I routed us up from Vicenza to Val Gardena and up the Staller Sattel and then onto our weekend lodging in Oberdraugburg, Austria.
The ride got right down to business with a nice climb up Passo Manghen with a rest stop at the mountaintop rifugio at 6000'.
Then it was back down into the next valley and a transit route to Val Gardena. Tim had never ridding in the Alps and most of the folks we work with scarcely ride more than an hour or two out of town...unbelievable!
Val Gardena doesn't disappoint:
We had a stop for lunch, I had speck, eggs and taters...mighty fine:
Onward we went to the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse...a fantastic feat of engineering, just for scenery. Everyone who's been in the are has taken a photo like this in Heiligenblut, the town just south of the GG. https://www.grossglockner.at/gg/en/index
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As we climbed toward the GG, the scenery just got better and mo' bettah.
Glacier on the GG.
A few years back in May 2018, a good riding buddy did something really stupid...he passed a line of cars behind a tractor and just as he pulled even with the tractor, it turned in front of him. Instant...game over. We had some stickers made and I leave a bit of Fritz on roads I think he would have liked to ride. Fritz eschewed tech, no GPS, no cell phone, no internet..hell, he only had a 4 wheel vehicle for a few years before he passed. A lifelong bachelor, he lived the moto life many of us dream. I left Fritz on the Grossglockner.
GG never disappoints, this day the clouds were below the highest road level...nice.
The view from the highest point at the Edelweiss ParkPlatz is a nice view.
Lunch was a grilled ham and cheese with a nice view.
One last farewell view, a prossima!
Back at the hotel, it was time for more route planning.
The next day, I routed us thru Lake Sorapis near Cortina d'Ampezzo (IT).
We found a nice place for lunch; I had raviolini (aka ravioli) stuffed with fresh herbs and topped with smoked local cheese.
The above lunch and our riding was around the Italian town of Forni di Sopra, well off the beaten track but a great little town with fantastic riding in every direction.
We rode over Passo di Pura, a two way, single lane road over a low pass. Other than summer, it's rare to see another car. The north ramp has an old tunnel that is unlit and in the off season, is unregulated. Luckily, this was high season so they had lights controlling the traffic. It's a neat place to visit.
We ended up in the Valle di Sauris which is well known to the dual sport crowd as the home of Forcella Lavardet...sadly, the Forcella is permanently closed to motorized traffic. The valley is very scenic though.
We stopped for fuel just before the Plocken Pass turn off. This gas station was also a bar with nice craft beer and an outside keg/table. We just got fuel and some water..this time. LOL.
I took a detour for a local pass and caught up with the above groups on the Plocken Pass. I cut thru them alright but a couple of 2-up riders on GS gave me fits and I was only able to shake them when the road got really terrible on near the peak on the Italian side. Good times.
Departing Oberdrauburg, Austria we headed east and took Nassfeld Pass into Italy. It's a nice road but the pavement is a bit broken but there is nice scenery; there's a ski resort at the peak and a nice lake on the south ramp in Italy.
We went directly into Slovenia via Tarvisio, Italy and made a lunch stop just east of Kranskja Gora. You can get what you want in this area, as for me, I always get Cevapcici (or Mici as it's known in some parts). Minced meat with spices and a Radler (half grapefruit juice, half beer) to wash it down.
Racing the rain, we made it to our destination: Pension Kanonir in Jezersko, Slovenia. This is a great place; Marie runs it which means all the cooking and check-in. Simple rooms with a babbling brook to lull you to sleep; around $35 with breakfast included. https://www.kanonir.si/aindex.html
Tim and I had a beer and plotted the next day's ride while we waited for Joe to arrive.
Soon, the sky turned darker and some light rain started...the road from the highway is very windy and riders should be extra cautious at the end of the riding day...goes double for rain...but what about Hail?
Pea and marble sized hail came down...I kept thinking: "I hope Joe found some shelter".
Nope and well, yes. When it started hailing, Joe pulled into the first place he could get some shelter...turns out, it was his destination! Serendipity!
Joe changed out of his wet clothes (no time to don rain gear since the storm came up quickly). Once in dry clothes, the three of us tucked into dinner. I opted for the mixed grill, about $15usd.
Note: most places in Europe have wine by the glass, half liter or full liter for around $2/$5/$8-$9 respectively. Cheaper than water most times.
I'm an early riser and met Marie at 0700 and did some route planning while drinking coffee and watching her set the table. It was quite a spread with all local stuff including smoked bacon that her papa made. You can't get more real food than this.
Northern Slovenia looks a lot like my home area in Appalachia, very much like the Blue Ridge Mountains.
We got on the road and it was a highway slog across Slovenia and to Novi Sad, Serbia. I wish I could say it was super scenic and I had lots of great photos but the truth is the highways look a lot alike the other dull highways across Europe. A few hours into the trip, Tim had second thoughts about continuing on into Romania and he split for BudaPest>Italy (home). The original plan had Tim with us until Romania and riding with us along the Danube and stay with us our first night in Romania. As I explained to him, "you do you" and off he went.
We had a bit of a slog thru the traffic, looks like traffic everywhere else:
I feel like Serbia (the part between the highway from Zagreb>Novi Sad) is like a neighbor down the street; they are nice enough but their house could use a coat of paint, the fence needs mending and every so often, they have a waste management issue. We had high hopes to take a short taxi ride into the old part of Novi Sad but the day had pretty much smoked us with the heat and highway droning so we walked to dinner. Breakfast was decent enough and gave us fuel until we could get to the Danube.
Leaving Novi Sad, the TomTom GPS routed us east to the Danube. There was lots of agriculture, mostly corn and sunflowers with long stretches of road with very little traffic.
I wrongly thought we would cross into Romania directly but there are very few bridges in that area and we took the Serbian coast road. Restaurants were few and far between but soon enough we spotted a few bikes parked at a place with an a nice spot right on the river.
3 guesses about what I got? Easy, Cevapcici prolit pomfrit and a Serbian beer. Nice.
Serbia is making a go for Danube tourism with some nice billboard maps along the road. Unfortunately, some of the tunnels are unlit and quite dark, mind the potholes and cyclists! There is major work being done on the road so the pavements should be much improved in 2023.
There are still hard borders in Europe. Croatia>Serbia is a hard border with passport and document (ex. vehicle registration) checks. My paperwork is non-standard since I work in Italy under the Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA); unfortunately, my registrations documents look absolutely forged but the numbers match. I got grilled entering Serbia (from Croatia) but was allowed to enter.
First view of border leaving Serbia to enter Romania:
This check was 30 minutes as the guy just couldn't believe these were official documents. After 30 minutes, he let me go onto the Romania checkpoint. That guy, oh boy...it was an hour wait and they would not let any other cars pass. When they finally let me enter Romania, the tail end of the line was across the Danube dam and had backed up the Serbian exit check. Sheesh.
Joe and I had a nice ride on the Romanian side of the Danube as we made our way to that night's accommodation in Eselnita.
the highway tracking north thru the valley; i've been there several times, nary a cop in sight. as long as you can stay in your lane, moto's mostly can ride as fast as they want.
moto only parking at the top.
a pic from 2021 trip, the whole road is like this. lol
Joe is 82 and still getting after it on his GSA (and 2 x Wings, CB500X and several other moto's).
You don't stop riding 'cause you get old; you get old 'cause you stop riding.
Ya, to what Endo asked, and thats really close to the route I'm planning that intersects with Oktotefest Been awhile since we had a really epic thread like this, thanks so much for sharing!
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Been awhile since we had a really epic thread like this, thanks so much for sharing!
