Swiss Alps Motorcycle Tour September 2017 - Part Two.

Part Two.

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Tuesday 9/12/17

We got up had breakfast and thanked our Air B&B hosts. It is raining lightly as we leave.  Weather looks questionable, we are going to try our ride over to St Moritz.  If we hit heavy snow will turn around and forget it. May have to find another place for the night. Off we go up Sustenpass.  

We stop for pictures and snow flurries start falling. 

We are near the top so we keep going. All white on top but  the road is clear. You can feel the air warm as we drop below the snow line. Road is wet and the light snow turns to light rain as the grass turns from white to green. We are headed for Wassen where we will turn toward Antermatt. In Wassen we pull over for a break and to take some pictures and a short video.

We stop in front of a small shop that sold drums. Switzerland has many small shops that just sell one line of items. Not sure they would survive in the US. But these small shops seem to flourish in Switzerland. 

The rain has stopped but the sky is still dark.  We head south to Andermatt and  Hwy 19. This will take us over Oberalppass the highest pass for the day. It is much colder on top with snow falling as we ride through. We can see the snow line below and look forward to passing below it. As before  you can feel it warm as we pass below the snow line. I  should have brought the GoPro or a small camera for Veronica could take pictures as we rode.  Again we feel like we are riding across a page on a Swiss travel calendar. 

Dropping below the snow line. Somewhere wayout there is Trun and lunch. 

Driving into Trun, roads can be very narrow. We had just stopped at a signal light to let cars and trucks go through this narrow section. 

We start looking for a place for lunch. I missed one cafe because of traffic and we keep riding. We see a small cafe with motorcycles and people sitting outside. Looks good so we pull over.  

The cafe was packed inside and we were seated at a table for 4 with 2 others who were already served. Everyone had the same lunch, only one item on the menu. Wiener Schnitzel and fries was the choice for today, wow it was good.  The cafe was full with all the constructions workers. They left about 15 minutes after we were seated. The large group that was outside in the cold came in where it was warm. You can see them seated behind Veronica. All were riding and I asked if they spoke English, lucky they did.   All but one of the riders were from Slovenia. The dark haired gentleman to the right of Veronica in the picture was from Brazil. We talked bikes and then wished each other a good ride. They were coming from where we were going and said the weather was improving.   We told them they may hit snow ahead. 

From Trun we rode to Hwy 3 where we turned south. Up and over Julierpass and down to St Moritz. The weather does improve as advertised. Do we look happy to see better weather?

Some of the construction zones we stopped at. Note the waterfall on the right side of the small tunnel. There was construction everywhere in Switzerland.  The round sign with 30 in the middle is a speed limit sign. 30 kph is 18.6 mph, slow and also the speed limit in most small villages.   

Below is a construction zone in another small town we rode through. 

We stop near the summit of Julierpass for pictures and to take a break. Julierpass is the main road into St Moritz, so full of trucks and tour busses. Both use ALL of the road when going around the tight hairpin turns. We slowed or stopped several time to watch the long rigs navigate the tight turns. 

Got to our hotel at 4:00 pm. Long day as we had to go so slow. Max speed off the main highways is 80kph or 49.7mph.  We also hit 12 construction zones with stops, only one did we hit on the green light.  

The Hotel dining room was good and after our heavy lunch we had soup and salad for dinner. 

We did have room for  coffee and desert. Well earned after a long day of riding. 

We got an upgrade on the room, they were not very busy mid week.  Our room was very nice and just a short walk up the hill from the main building.  Hotel staff was very friendly and helpful. Because we are staying two nights we got cable car passes. That will be for tomorrow and part 3 of our trip.  

Raining just a little when we leave for our room. End of a great day in the Alps. We dodged the bad weather all day so the light rain was OK.  Weather for tomorrow looks great and we will have a busy day in St Moritz. 


Click here for Part One. 

Click here for Part Three.