Sunday, September 9, 2012

Day 6 - Lake Garda to Arabba

One of the amazing things about this trip is the "crescendo" pace and today was the day with the most beautiful scenery we have done. Starting in Lake Garda and going through the Dolomites promised to be a special day but nothing could have prepared for what we saw and did today. Riding next to Lake Garda with sheer mountain on one side and lake on the other was spectacular. If you like tunnels, like Bo does then this is great place to ride. Bo, Joy and Steve left about two hours earlier than us and we would only meet for dinner at Arabba.

Once we passed Riva de La Garda (town on the north side of the lake) we turned left and started the climb up the mountain. There was a lot of traffic but this did not deter the speedy motorcyclists which came past us at incredible speeds.

On one of the stops on the road (as road turned from double to single lane) we met a rider that had a number of Texas flags on bike and helmet. It turned out that he was an Italian that happend to love Austin and got quite excited when he knew we were from Texas. We thoroughly enjoy talking to fellow motorcyclists any chance we get and share experiences and stories.

We have fallen in love with the avrious Italian towns in this part of Italy. You can see a lot pf Erman influence in the architecture and you can hear German being spoken everywhere.

For late lunch we stopped at Fiera di Primiero where we had great fruit juices and we realized that there was an important rallye going on with all the red banners around.

We also did the Passo Role (1,989m) and took amazing pictures where a dolomite peak peaked its head behind a cloud. There were quite a lot of bikers up at the summit where we were able to buy a sticker (first one for the Passos) to put on the bike.
It was getting quite late and we still had one more Passo to do. Passo Pordoi at 2,239 m high is the highest surfaced road transversing a pass in the Dolomites. There is a memorial to Fausto Coppi at the summit. As we passed there quite late we did not stop for long at the summit and made our way to Arabba.
When we arrived at hotel we were greeted by a group of German riders that were on awe looking at the GSA so we had a good time discussing in a broken mixture of many languages the various accessories and our adventure.
We liked this small and very inexpensive hotel where we spent the night in the company of many fellow riders that in that evening would all come together under the same roof. The food had a large German influence and was too much. We felt quite full afterwards so went to the bar to do internet. Called a day at about 12:30 and although late we were not the last ones out.
 
That night as we looked upon the mountains all around us, we wondered how far we were from the various other cities and places around the world.
 
When will this crescendo stop ... hopefully never !

 

Click HERE for all the pictures for Day 6

 

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