in planning » In planning - north Italy and Switzerland

Hi all, the weather has been cold and rainy so even my December riding urges are on pause so I took up planning for some trips next year which both me and my fiancee/pilion prefer over wedding planning anyway and the money is better spent

I would welcome any recommendations and experience for the areas, naturally I'm aware of all the biker 'hotspots' when it comes to mountain passes but if you have alternatives to recommend or even passes to avoid for one reason or another please do share. Timeline is 5-7 days each trip, May/June and/or September so good weather but before the summer tourism explosion.

Trip 1: Norther Italy, basically north of Milan-Brescia-Venice line. Plan to tour around Garda and Como lakes, and associated passes to Austria/Switzerland but we would be based out of N. Italy. and not wonder too far into AT or SUI. No major cities.

Trip 2: Switzerland, here I'm wary of their extreme fines and traffic surveillance - not that I plan to race but I'd hate to leave 1/4 of my salary there for 10kph above on a lovely mountain road. Plan is to pick something roughly central i.e. Luzern but not necessarily there due to lodging costs and do day trips which are 2-3 hour top one way to different parts of the country. No major cities such as Bern or Zurich but stick to the countryside.

Trip 3: Slovakia, former colleague also motorcyclist highly recommended it in general. Similar to Switzerland central base and daytrips around but am yet to go into details. This would be a decent alternative as the budget could take Italy and Slovakia while Switzerland would likely be a 1-off due to costs associated.

Toured around the Dolomites in September, and stayed 2 or 3 nights in Limone, on Lake Garda. Garda's very pretty and all, but honestly I didn't rate it as a biking destination. The traffic was just awful all around; you had to get a long way out before finding anything like open roads. I remember thinking at the time if I'd been on a 'civilian' holiday (ie, the sort I usually go on with my wife, typically involving an aeroplane rather than a motorcycle) it would have been great; but we'd just come down from the Dolomites and had our best rides curtailed by unseasonable snow and were champing at the bit to get on the road.

So, if you wanted to park up the bike and do the usual tourist stuff around Garda then I'd recommend it; but for riding - not so much.

The rough plan was to stick to the north of it to access the northern way B-roads towards the borders with Austria and Switzerland. It's picturesque to wake up next to and much less expansive than its comparable Como offerings.
Southern part seems far more urbanized which is poor riding, I'm willing to put up with an amount of crowds especially around Como but only so much, should it prove too much we'll run in the opposite direction.

Learned that lesson the hard way, attempting Neuschwanstein in August, it felt less crowded on some concerts I attended in filled stadiums compared to that experience.

Also good to know the highest passes could be snowed in even in September.

Here's tne official list of speeding fines in Switzerland. I don't know how they compare to the UK - probably more considering the exchange rate, but I don't think they justify their reputation if you're not wildly overdoing it.
And they're no stricter than anywhere else with the controls.
If you're caught in a fixed speed trap, they usually deduct 5kph rather than 3kph for a laser.
On the other hand if you speed in a 20 or 30kph zone, expect to be hit quite hard.

https://www.ch.ch/en/travel-and-emigrate...-limit#speeding

So no big worries for the average tourist having a reasonable amount of fun on the passes.

Re the link, I rarely get blocked from overtaking in Switzerland, less often than in Italy, from my experience, and ones that do block are often tourists.

Btw, a lot of the fast sports cars you see are hire cars, not locals!

Zitat von wessie im Beitrag #7

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Zitat von KevKP im Beitrag #6

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Here's tne official list of speeding fines in Switzerland. I don't know how they compare to the UK - probably more considering the exchange rate, but I don't think they justify their reputation if you're not wildly overdoing it.
And they're no stricter than anywhere else with the controls.
If you're caught in a fixed speed trap, they usually deduct 5kph rather than 3kph for a laser.
On the other hand if you speed in a 20 or 30kph zone, expect to be hit quite hard.

https://www.ch.ch/en/travel-and-emigrate...-limit#speeding

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they get the harsh reputation from the "summons" category as the fine will be based on earnings, so those with the disposable income to buy a Ferrari or Panigale tend to have a bad day in court.

a little tale from a 2011 trip, written up in Jan 2012. I was making my last trip on my R1150GS so was a goody two shoes. They chaps riding with enthusiasm from St Moritz to Austria had a different experience. Not helped by riding over a left filter lane to overtake an unmarked police car.
https://eldaifo.blogspot.com/2012/01/the...part-1.html?m=0
Yes, I have posted this before but it gives some narrative to what happens to those taking the piss in Switzerland and the Black Forest in Germany.

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