The Dolomites and the Alps

Sunday, 7th July, we left Venice and stopped in Cortina and had the best BBQ chicken ever for lunch at the markets. After lunch we rode up Col Colle S Lucia and the view was spectacular.

The view from our 'hotel' room.

On Monday, 8th July, we headed to Merano. The Dolomites are made of a type of carbonate rock and you can see they are different from the Alps, the peak of the mountain cannot be reached so we pass through the mountains...

Passo di Campolongo 1875m overlooking the ski town of Corvara:

Passo di Gardena 2121m

 

Passo di Giovo 2000m

Merano sits in a basin surrounded by mountains and we found that there were thunderstorms each afternoon. The photo on the left is facing west and to the right you are looking at a thunderstorm, it rained a little whilst we had dinner, but I do love this photo with the double rainbow.

On Tuesday, 9th July we rode the Stelvio Pass!!!  This was an awesome feat and something on many bikers bucket lists.  Why???  It has 48 switchbacks, it took us around 25 mins to get to the top at an elevation of 2760m!!!  Was it fun??? No, not really.  the switchbacks are very tight and you need to be really aware of cars and vehicles coming in the opposite direction.  Our Ducati does not like slow speeds either, as it needs the wind to be blowing over the radiator to keep the engine cool so it was tough going for the Duc too.

We went down the mountain on the other side through Passo del Foascagno 2149m.

Then through the ski town of Livigno, which had this beautiful lake which turned into a dam which you crossed on the dam wall and were stopped to pay 10 euro, then we went on and were stopped by a traffic light which turned out to be a 15 minute turnaround to enter a 3.2km one way tunnel. We had actually crossed into Switzerland!!!

Passo del Fuorno, 2149m was a great ride with nice sweeping roads...no time for pics...we stopped for a quick coffee break and to ask where we were and then rode on back to Merano, Italy.

On Wednesday, 10th July, we headed east to Mittersill in Austria via Passo Rombo 2509m, which had a small museum at the top and a 10 euro toll fee.

We passed through a national park, 5 euro fee, which had the highest waterfall in Austria, 380m.

It was an amazing few days riding through those mountains, just beautiful.

We are in Prague at the moment and are leaving for Dresden on Friday/tomorrow morning and hope to have good internet to blog about Austria/Vienna and the Czech Republic.

Take care and thanks for reading!