Monday 27/7

A beautiful morning at the Bodensee today and an OK breakfast. Despite Rod not having had much sleep (due to ‘domestics’ involving the Princess and missed calls in the early hours of the morning, necessitating a barrage of calls to and from the UK between 03.00 and 03.30), the dynamic duo were in good spirits when they departed in brilliant sunshine. The edge was taken off a bit by a horrendously hot and dusty, tunnel, somewhere in Austria, but we perked up when we felt that we’d made good time to the Swiss border, having abandoned the twat-navs for the day.

We didn’t buy petrol in Austria, as we didn’t need any, but it was about 25 cents a litre cheaper than Belgium and Germany.

Having crossed into Switzerland at Feldkirch, we made a change to the route to take in the Splϋgenpass (2113 metres) rather than follow the N3 down from Chur, which goes close to St Moritz. In either case, the last part of the journey would drop down to the outskirts of Milan via Colico and Lecco, following the shore of Lake Como. Well, that was the plan!

We went to Vaduz, in Liechtenstein, which seemed like a wealthy place but had a very strange museum – the Kunst Museum. Obviously, they spell it a bit differently but – of course – we knew what it meant. Rod and Simon were, naturally enough, both too embarrassed to go in, although we had a good titter about it. Everything went pear-shaped when we couldn’t find the road to Chur from Vaduz, only the toll autoroute. Eventually, having had to consult the GPS, we found it and were on our way to Splϋgen – or so we thought.

Although on the right road and travelling in the right direction (knew this from checking the position of the Sun), unfortunately we had missed the Splϋgen junction and were just going deeper into the heart of Switzerland. By the time we reached Thon, this was blatantly obvious so we stopped for a coffee (ha, ha) and to sort out our next step. The coffees were a laugh as, when Simon went to pay, the waitress wouldn’t accept Euros or plastic. She sent him to the Post Office, over the road, to get some money changed – just as well, really, as he then had money for a beer when (eventually) we reached Splϋgen.

We nearly decided to follow another scenic route down to Lecco, being loathe to retrace our steps, but, because Simon really wanted to do a ‘proper’ mountain pass, we headed the 25 miles, or so, back towards Chur to pick up the right road. It’s an ill wind and all that but the ride back was great as there was very little traffic on the main road and we knew the lie of the sweepers, even though we were coming from the opposite direction. We had a good blat back most of the way, taking a different and very small mountain road for the last half of the stage. This was stimulating asit consisted of dozens of right-angle bends, up and down hill, with enough severe roadworks to give Rod and Simon their customary ‘off-road’ experience.

We had a beer in the village of Splϋgen, before tackling the Pass. By now, the schedule had again gone to pot, the fifty mile diversion having cost us over an hour and a half, altogether. We were very warm, having seen a sign reading 34 degrees a bit earlier and the temperature still being high.

The Splϋgenpass was everything you could hope for from that sort of road, totally absorbing and frenetic. When we reached the more moderate lower twisties, it felt really weird – the bikes seeming really quiet and relaxed. There was still about a hundred miles to our destination, the Hotel Polo, in a Milan suburb and we were both hot and knackered – Rod dozing-off in one tunnel, en-route.

When we got to the hotel we found that it only offered breakfast and automat refreshments and the Pizzeria, 100m down the road, was closed on Mondays. So, dripping sweat, we decided to keep our bike gear on and look for a restaurant in a nearby town.

True to form, Rod having made us late getting the multi-language phrase book, we hadn’t looked at it and hadn’t taken it with us to the ‘Wine and Roses Café Bar’. The waiter spoke no English, whatsoever, and the chef apparently knew about six words which luckily included ‘eat’, ‘fish’ and ‘meat’. The only things we could say were ‘grazie’, ‘prego’ and ‘due birra’, which at least got us beers and a menu. Fortunately, another diner found a customer and her daughter who could speak English, so we were – in typically ‘Brits abroad’ fashion – sorted. The food was alright, but dear, and we were too tired to drink more than a couple of beers so we returned to the hotel to get blogging.

Bad news? The wi-fi was crap – Rod’s net book wouldn’t pick up the router and the signal was too weak for Simon to upload much as it kept cutting-off, maybe due to the 50 Japanese who’d arrived all firing up their gadgets.

Good news? Big ashtray in the bedroom, so no need to smoke outside. Hooray!

Simon may have had the worst weather he’d ever ridden in on Friday, but today he had the best ever roads, which more than compensates. It has been a hard day, but at least he now has Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Italy to his tally – nine countries in three days. Tomorrow, we are going to have a look at the Monza Circuit before heading down to Provence, ready for Monaco on Wednesday.

Two blokes...

Two Bikes...

Two Sat-Navs...

No petrol:

No idea where they are!