Alps Trip August

HI Guys, looking for some advice, tips and tricks for my first trip in August. Just wanted to give you guys a brief idea of my plan and where i would be looking for B&B recommendations or any suggested better routes.

I've got 17 days to go and play, so would like to make the most of them, getting in some great roads and some off the road activities such as hillwalking and paragliding in Grindelwald hopefully!

Here goes:

Leave Cardiff after work Friday 10th and ride to Ashford or anywhere near chunnel. Get up early for the chunnel and head down to Lake Annecy with an overnight stop on the way, suggestions for nice route and stop off point welcomed!

Lake Annecy to Grindelwald in Switzerland via Col de Aravis, Chamonix, Martigny, Col du Pillon and Interlaken. Anyone stayed at Grindelwald before? will probably stay here a couple of days to take in the sights and jump off a mountain with only some thin silklike material keeping me up!

Grindelwald to Lake Como, via Sustenpass, Andermatt (might stay here the night and take in some more passes??!!), Oberalp Pass and Lugano. Will stay here overnight before riding around the Lake to Tirano and North up Stelvio Pass. Not sure wether to keep heading north from here or east towards Bolzano? Any thoughts???

Then into Austria, not sure wether to head further east to Lienz and up Grossglockner or up to Innsbruck.

Up then into Germany, taking in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Alpine Road West to visit the Fairy Tale castle at Fussen and on to Bodensee.
Hopefully spend a couple of days or more along the south of Germany before heading back up Black Forest and heading up to Calais again by a route not decided yet!!!

This would be my first time touring abroad so any advice would be really helpful, can't wait!!!!

Cheers guys!

If you want a route to Annecy and somewhere to stay on the way down, look in here:

View attachment Calais - Pinney - Ann'y.zip

I did the run a couple of weeks ago. Short bit of motorway, Calais to Cambrai, thereafter all N (National, like our A roads) and D (equiv of our B roads). All good roads.

If you have time it maybe worthwhile going over to France the night before.

This place is convenient for Calais and a hop onto the motorway for the quick blat to Cambrai. http://www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/re...N&action=fastadvsearch&logis=wisques&x=11&y=7

or this http://www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/re...N&action=fastadvsearch&logis=st+omer&x=10&y=6
if you want something in a town.

The train is quick but still takes an hour by the time you have faffed around, got on and got off again. Add to losing an hour with the time difference, a hotel in France looks quite good and cetainly better than Folkstone or Ashford.

The Faisan d'Ore hotel in Annecy is pretty good. Garage for the bike and about a 15 or 20 minute walk around the lake into the old town. Have used it several times. http://www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/re...EN&action=fastadvsearch&logis=annecy&x=11&y=8

The Piney hotel is good too. http://www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/re...=EN&action=fastadvsearch&logis=piney&x=10&y=7 Owned by a bloke who has ridden the Dakar. Try to get a room out the back though as it is on a main road, which is surprisigly busy with lorries.

If you don't happen to have Msoft Office installed on your PC then you can get a free Excel Workbook viewer from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...f4-996c-4569-b547-75edbd03aaf0&displaylang=EN

Andy Higgins said:

HI Guys, looking for some advice, tips and tricks for my first trip in August. Just wanted to give you guys a brief idea of my plan and where i would be looking for B&B recommendations or any suggested better routes.

I've got 17 days to go and play, so would like to make the most of them, getting in some great roads and some off the road activities such as hillwalking and paragliding in Grindelwald hopefully!

Here goes:

Leave Cardiff after work Friday 10th and ride to Ashford or anywhere near chunnel. Get up early for the chunnel and head down to Lake Annecy with an overnight stop on the way, suggestions for nice route and stop off point welcomed!

Lake Annecy to Grindelwald in Switzerland via Col de Aravis, Chamonix, Martigny, Col du Pillon and Interlaken. Anyone stayed at Grindelwald before?

Cheers guys!

Click to expand...

Stayed at The Mountain Hostel in Grindelwald, very good facilities and cheap {for Switzerland!}. There are some double/twin rooms but probably booked up by nowthere's always room in dormitories though. Google Mountain Hostel Grindelwald and have a look.

stayed at this place (www.gastehaus-hamburg.de) in garmisch-partenkirchen a couple of times off road parking,comfortable and reasonable price. have a good trip

dadster said:

stayed at this place (www.gastehaus-hamburg.de) in garmisch-partenkirchen a couple of times off road parking,comfortable and reasonable price. have a good trip

Click to expand...

Error in the link. http://www.gaestehaus-hamburg.de/

Looks good though.

Cheers for the speedy reply guys! Will look into those,

keep em coming!

I'm starting a 16 day tour this coming friday, I've used Ibis hotels through France and one in Switzerland as stop overs as well as 4 nights at the Col de Lana hotel recommended on here in the Dolomites. Also stopping in a chalet in Chamonix for 4 nights en-route.

NIce one! I hope you have a great and safe ride. I am getting sorted slowly, i don't want to arrange too much though, i've no doubt plans can change at the drop of a hat!

Thanks to the above posts i've got my first couple of days nearly sorted and then i'll wing it from there for accomodation, but useful to hear other people's experiances.

The Grossglockner is well worth doing. I've just come back from a brief tour round the Alps, and this was probably the highlight in terms of roads and scenery. I couldn't enjoy fully it as my bike was a bit iffy at that point, but it was still an amazing place to see.

We stayed in Iselsberg near Lienz - stayed here - which is a dead cheap biker-orientated but very satisfactory place to stay. We paid 28 euros each for single rooms. For some reason, accommodation in Austria seems to be much cheaper than anywhere else.

Andermatt tends to get quite busy - we struggled to find a room there at all a couple of years ago. But it's worth staying there to ride the nearby passes, especially if the weather's good while you're there. You can make a nice lap of Sustenpass, Grimsel, Furka, Nufenen and San Bernadino.

We also did the Stelvio in Italy but, frankly, while it's ok it was very busy (perhaps to be expected on a sunny Saturday in July) and not particulalry pleasant coming down the East side.

If you have time, which it seems like you do, I'd go along with Wapping's suggestion of avoiding motorways as much as possible. Our first and last days this year were motorway-only affairs, and it serves a purpose, but you don't get to enjoy the atmosphere of a foreign country and it is bloody boring! You should be able to knock up a route back via the Black Forest and Ardennes which will stretch the enjoyment of really good roads until you're about 3 hours from Calais on the way back.

First trip abroad - you must be really excited!

Came back from that area in June, stayed at Hotel Rossli in Interlaken then rode on to Davos over Grimsel and Furka passes via Andermatt.

Stayed at Hotel Crest Sun in Davos (indoor swimming pool).

Again onto Dolomites via Umbrail and Stelvio superb hotel in Dolomites again with pool, sauna etc if you are going that far bed, breakfast, 4 course evening meal and drinks £46.00 each a day all in.

All can be found with Google but can dig out the links if you want them from stored E-Mails.

Teejay

Andy,
No offence but as it's your first trip abroad imho your trying to do the whole of europe main sightseeing experience in one hit. all you'll end up doing is going from one major tourist bit to another.

IMHO I would cut that list in half (do the other half next year and give yourself something else to really look forward to) .

If you ride through the valley floor to Annecy you'll ride through some very scenic & interesting small towns & villages that time has forgot and a great road to boot. When you get Annecy you could easily spend a couple of days riding round some great roads and get a real feel for the place. And then move on to the next place on your list and explore some more, etc, etc .

Hi Roadrider,

Taken that on board! I think i will re-evaluate my plans as i go. I have made a rough plan/route but will be open to change if i want to spend more time in a particular place or am tired.

I have been thinking the same as you the last couple of days and will take it day by day and see where i end up, this is one of the reasons i only booked the first night's B&B.

Thanks