started: February 2022
This is a page in progress to collect a few ideas for routes and places between Kempten and South Tirol in Italy.
Collection of interesting ways and routes to cross the Alps:
Glurns/Glorenza:
For those interested, the “Way of St. James” (Jakobsweg in German) passes through Kempten and heads down to lake Constance, passing through Buchenberg and Altusried. Here are some photos with accompanying text from the church in Buchenberg near Kempten:
I touched a part of the Way of St. James down in southern France in 2019 so I was intrigued to find out that I now live on a different part of the same route.
Thanks to Leafletjs for their work 🙂
Update 29.05.2022:
I had the opportunity to do a quick 30 hour tour this weekend so I did a trip to Glurns/Glorenza and a bit beyond. The weather was looking very dodgy with quite a lot of rain coming in from the west on the day before and then more coming down from the north on the Sunday. I had considered taking my tent but decided against it due to the forecast. The bike now has new tyres on and all oils have been renewed and/or checked.
At the moment the bike is real state-of-the-art “2005”: no screen, no usb connections, no working mounting for my navigator so it was basically like touring motorcycling twenty years ago. Navigation by trying to memorise the place names and road numbers and important turn-offs and stopping every now and then to stretch legs and quickly note the next part of the route. I decided to do the quick route down as opposed to the “pretty” routes above because of the weather so I could get south as soon as possible and because “pretty” routes on small roads are great with a navigator but almost impossible to memorise.
I did motorway/autobahn to Reutte at the Austrian border then followed Fernpass up and over and down into the Inn valley. From there I took normal roads west towards Landeck through Tyrol and then turned off towards Reschenpass. The weather was wet pretty much up to the Italian border then started clearing up. Fernpass should generally be avoided on any days where increased traffic could be expected (public holidays, beginnings and ends of school holidays etc) as is a bottleneck and can jam up from the Inn valley to the German border. As I came down from the Reschenpass (passo di resia) the clouds became lighter and the Ortler massif came into view.
Passo di Resia / Reschenpass
Franzenshöhe and the Stelvio pass
I then continued down to Glurns/Glorenza (see above for info). Because it was just after midday I continued on towards the Stelvio pass and got most of the way up. There are an insane number of very tight hair-pin bends on the way up from the north and it was quite a job to manoeuvre the big Guzzi up. I stopped for refreshments and resolved to continue the route up to the top and beyond another time.
Glurns / Glorenza
I felt it was about time to come down and find a place to stay so I came back to Glurns/Glorenza. I found a delightful room on the main square. Glurns/Glorenza is a really special place for an evening walk. I did a round and then settled on the Piazza for a drink and some reading.
The trip back on Sunday was pretty wet with a lot of traffic but it turned out to be a really nice 30 hour trip 🙂 .
As is the way with trips like these, you tend to come back with a to-do list for the bike:
- Windshield
- central navigator mounting above instruments
- sw-motech tank ring for tankbag
- usb charger somewhere dry-ish up front
- my sheep skin on the saddle as currently a bit of a bench
- at some stage Hepco & Becker luggage rack for my big aluminium bins
Otherwise, the bike performed wonderfully and has great potential for the future. It has loads of grunt, is a bit chunky but has long legs and that is a very useful thing to have on a bike.