2 Full Days To Fill @ Garmisch & Como. Advice.

[wessie]

The vignette is a must though as I'm riding back into France from Como cutting straight across CH.

If you are heading in the direction of Lucerne and then onto Basel you can take a pretty detour to cut out a bit of motorway. The road is the Panoramastrasse and is found just north of Meiringen. I rode it last year when travelling from Alsace to Maggiore. It was so much nicer than riding the motorway through loads of tunnels under Lucerne.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&s...asse,+6074+Giswil,+Obwalden,+Switzerland&z=14

 

[the beer hunter]

If you are heading in the direction of Lucerne and then onto Basel you can take a pretty detour to cut out a bit of motorway. The road is the Panoramastrasse and is found just north of Meiringen. I rode it last year when travelling from Alsace to Maggiore. It was so much nicer than riding the motorway through loads of tunnels under Lucerne.

Cheers for that wessie.

It adds about 4 hours riding time to the original (straight across) route but this will be our ride out of the area & back towards home so we may well opt to do it.
In fact your suggested route takes us over Grimsel , north towards Kleinteil, over the Panoramastrasse & then joining up with the A2 at Dagmersellen. This means we can leave Grimsel until the ride home & visit other places on our 2 free days.

I'll suggest this to the group.

 

[the beer hunter]

Have a ride towards Grainau from Garmisch, then down the fernpass

I've just had an e-mail from a guy I know who lives in Italy, he wanted to meet up last year but I informed him we were on a tight schedule & Paul had already written up a route.
He's planing to meet us next year & show us around.
He's just told me...

Right now I can give you these hints: as much as it looks tempting on paper do not ride the Fernpass in Austria. Yes, the road is nice but it's also probably the most crowded road in Austria. You are much, much better off using the Hahntenjoch. Believe it or not you'll actually save time. The Resia/Reschen Pass can also get quite crowded, though never at Fernpass levels.
Beware that Nauders is the only place in Austria were police actually carry out speed checks...

 

[Bryn]

I've just had an e-mail from a guy I know who lives in Italy, he wanted to meet up last year but I informed him we were on a tight schedule & Paul had already written up a route.
He's planing to meet us next year & show us around.
He's just told me...

Right now I can give you these hints: as much as it looks tempting on paper do not ride the Fernpass in Austria. Yes, the road is nice but it's also probably the most crowded road in Austria. You are much, much better off using the Hahntenjoch. Believe it or not you'll actually save time. The Resia/Reschen Pass can also get quite crowded, though never at Fernpass levels.
Beware that Nauders is the only place in Austria were police actually carry out speed checks...

Didn't seem that bad when we used it... (2nd time in 3 yrs) perhaps we just timed it right

 

[wessie]

The Fernpass was quite busy when I returned from "that loop mentioned above". It is wide, so fairly easy to overtake the convoys of caravans & lorries.

His assessment of Austrian police is inaccurate. In my view, Lienz is like the Bettws-y-Coed of Austria. It's at the southern end of the Grossglockner road. It's also on a major E-W route so gets a lot of traffic. I know several people that have been done near there (not only for speeding, they like busting people for filtering to the front of traffic light queues). They are also keen on checking for vignettes at motorway junctions - one of my group had a 65 Euro fine as a leaving present as she approached the German border.

I've just looked up Hahntenjoch - it's the road I recommended anyway, so you just as well do that loop on the way from GP to Como!