We're enjoying a quiet afternoon at the Alpenhotel Schlussel in Andermatt, in the Swiss Alps. The run from St Moritz was fairly leisurely, naturally quite a few twists and turns, but being a Monday (and a work day for most) without the huge numbers of hard out motorcyclists competing for road space. We're all enjoying new skills we've learned, taking in our stride what was previous pretty daunting (and dangerous), knowing that failure to keep to the outside of a blind corner could mean meeting an oncoming vehicle head on. Our average speed is just under 40km/hr- making 200 - 350 kilometre days about average. A couple of the very experienced (fast and very skilful) guys headed off separately yesterday determined to cover 12-14 as yet undiscovered mountain passes, covering 660km in 15 hours, arriving at the hotel weary and hungry. At one point today I foolishly glanced to my right whilst negotiating a sharp left turn, and decided the road ahead warranted my attention more than the very steep drop if I got it wrong - the only barrier being an occasional rock block painted white. This is the most challenging riding, and without doubt the most technically difficult I've ever encountered, and I'm loving it. Since leaving Germany, I'd guess that less than 5% of our travel has been on Autobahn or Autostrada, the bulk being on secondary or rural roads, sometimes little more than sealed tracks less than 3 metres wide (and that is for two way traffic). It is not unusual for oncoming traffic to have to decide who backs up - not usually a problem for us. Centre lines are not always apparent, which can lead to misunderstandings as to who should be where. We encounter everything from bikes at full roar, leaned over to the max, going far too fast, cars with drivers who have no idea how wide they are, buses and trucks who are very conscious of just how wide they are, tractors and goodness knows what else - although we've yet to come across wandering livestock. A troop of the Swiss Army provided us with a bit of entertainment as we rode past - practising using hand held anti aircraft missiles from their camouflaged camp in a farmers paddock. The Swiss are highly militarised and very pragmatic - whilst knowing they may not defeat any prospective invaders, they're determined to make the price of victory far too expensive to contemplate, which appears defence enough. Conscription is in force, with all men between 18-40 required to attend training as required, and to keep their military kit (including weapons) safe at home. It seems that Switzerland is divided into two types of landscape (although all very beautiful), that which is less than 45 degrees to the vertical, and the other half more so. The lesser is largely in pasture with farmers working industriously to cut every bit of grass in the short season open to them, using tractors on the flatish land, a low variety of 4wheel drive truck on the steepish, and self propelled, human guided mowers on the marginal land - and this hand mown treasure is raked up by young men, bare to the waist, enjoying the heat of the sun. Likewise, road workers are flat out, using the aforementioned short season to good advantage - not quite sure what they do in the long off season, but the Swiss have a reputation for precision in all things, watches and roads included. The scenery continues to marvel day by day, almost to the point of sensory overload - from one beautiful village, you see at least another 10 dotted on hillsides all around, impossible to tell if the homes and farm houses are 500 years old, or only 100. Wikipedia tells me that the Swiss number about 8.4 million very industrious and wealthy people, most of who live in the urban centres that thankfully we will not encounter. The Swiss know that German beer is better than anything they can make, and I'm off to help them prove the point. Don Comments are closed.
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Don MalcolmA perfect day involves being on my Harley with a long ride ahead.
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