A grey, overcast day with ominous rain-sodden clouds looming large, draping the mountain tops set out in front of me. Nevertheless, off we went, the Mule & I, both well fortified from our Austrian sojourn. Peg had had the luxury of a huge garage, sharing only with a lone VW and I the undoubted charms of a cosy room in an Austrian villa.
On the advice of the FF (Fruhstuch Fraulein) I scooted back down the road to Sölden to re-fuel, passing a group of 5 HDs (one of them was a lady rider), who also pulled in to fuel up; I followed them back up the road for a bit until the lead rider indicated for me to overtake them as they were travelling much slower than me. I duly obliged, pleased I was mounted on Mule and not a Harley ... they looked quite a handful with a 180° turn every 30m or so.
The weather turned from rain to icy rain, to hailstones, to snow over the course of the transit into Italy. On the way to the top of the pass (the Timelsjoch - not Stelvio as I’d mistakenly told the two Geordies later: it is the Stelvio region apparently) there is a toll - €12 Euro charge, but you do get an information leaflet, a thing like a ski lift pass (!) and a nice little sticker.
A very exciting and challenging ride, with, on a couple of occasions having to negotiate snow on the road! the back end didn’t like that much...
At the top there’s a restaurant and quite a few places selling souvenirs, etc., but I didn’t stop and continued down into Italy, finally stopping for coffee and a bit of a drip-dry at the delightfully positioned Gasthaus Schonau Timmelsjoch where I had my first of many delicious Italian brews. After about 30mins the Harley group boomed by - kudos to them ... it can’t have been easy.
The rain continued and made for a generally slow,
miserable descent to Bormio where at last, the sun shone through and I
gradually dried off.
Progress was terribly slow as there seemed to be no ring roads or bypasses and I found myself trundling through every town and village until I reached the outskirts of Lake Como and resolved to find accommodation as I was completely knackered due to getting embroiled in a gigantic traffic jam caused by a motorway closure and from keeping to the absurdly low speed limits (50kph on average) and eventually spotted a campsite near Como itself.
Set up camp (first time on this trip) next to two Brit bikers who turned out to be from Durham when we spoke next morning. Just had time to buy a bottle of beer & a packet of crisps (supper) from the camp shop/cafe before they closed and had an early night. Only downside was I managed to spill my beer so now have quite a stinky tent!!
On the road at about 10.30am heading vaguely south (no real plan apart from visiting Firenze). Managed to get lost but found myself in a lovely place not far from Lake Garda, which is a few km to the east (orignally had thought to camp at the north end of the lake).
Stopped for coffee at Lovere on the shores of the beautiful Lake Iseo, very Italian, hardly any touristas around and looked what I imagine St Moritz looks like. Spent about an hour there, chillin’ & watchin’ the world go by .... just like the locals! Could easily have spent a few days here (and as it happens should have).
Prompted to move on as an angry-looking black cloud was approaching from the north accompanied by sounds of thunder. A very enjoyable and twisty ride skirting the lake for about 5km ensued and once again, I managed to beat the rain.
Gladly taking the autostrada towards Bergamo I made very good time at last and thinking of looking for a bed in Cremona, decided to push on to the next town - Busseto - and found a lovely little hotel - Hotel & Ristorante Sole - in this charming town. Even had a proper dinner of pasta with wild boar ragu y insalata mixed with a bottle of birra and a takeaway bottle for bed!
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