First off, I'm sorry the pictures turned out larger than I wanted. I'm no computer guy, so I guess this is as good as it gets from me.
After a couple of days in Austria we headed for northern Italy. We cut through a corner of Slovenia, I belive the Julian Alps. This took us about two hours. We went up a pass which I believe had 56 switchbacks. All the switchbacks were made out of cobblestone. I am so gald it was dry. We even had to go around some large cows in the roadway who weren't terribly impressed with us. We stopped in on of the switchbacks about half way up and got a picture of this incrediable view. The mountains just went straight up.
Going into Italy we stopped at the border to get a couple of pictures to prove we were there.
During the trip we often saw paragliders soaring off in the distance. I had to stop when and get a picture when we saw them getting ready to take off.
We're getting closer to the Dolomites. Kathleen says we look like nuclear fruit. I just thought we look like Christmas.
On the way to lunch we had a spirted ride on some seriously curvy roads through the woods. We got behind someone who thought he was a rally car driver. I think he was in a WRX turbo. Luckily he got stuck behind some traffic that held him up enough for us to slip by. This is the lake where we stopped for lunch. The Moto GP race was getting ready to start in Mugello (sp?). It was kind of neat to see all the pre-race coverage they have over there. We had to take off about the time the race started.
On the way to a high up point where you can see all the Dolomites from one spot we got stuck in traffic in an Itallian town. Seems we got there shortly after a parade had started. We didn't have to wait to long and it was kind of fun to watch.
Passo Giau was where we were surrounded by the Dolomites. Heres a few pictures from on top of the pass. In the first pictures was one of our new friends Cheryl Smith. Cheryl's husband Robert has written many stories for Road Runner Magazine.
In the bottom of this picture is the town where we got stuck in the parade.
Looking down the other side of Passo Giau.
After we passed a ski resort going up we came upon this lake. It has a Dam at each end. Out of the picture to the right and up is a Glacier. If you look along the left you can see some of the open side tunnels that got us to this area. We went throuh a lot of tunnels like that on the sides of the mountains during our trip.
We had to cross another pass later in the day to get to our hotel at a ski resort in Italy.
This was the view across the street from the hotel.
You never know what you'll find on top of some these passes. Our friend Ron from Florida found a look-a-like.
And this is the goats home.
We spent two nights here in Meran Italy. In this part of Northern Italy most folks speak German. Doesn't really matter to me since I don't speak either. Meran seemed like a pretty large city. I could not believe how many miles of Apple orchard and vinyards they have in this area.
We stopped for a moment to take in the view near the bottom of the Passo Stelvio. We had run into some rain getting there but it cleared out nicely for us.
This turned out to be my favorite picture of me. I and others usually prefer pictures of me with my helmet on. This was taken on near the top of Stelvio as the clouds were breaking up.
A couple of minutes later, the view of below was a little clearer. This is probably about a 1/3 of the way up. We're at a little over 9000 ft on top.
If you look closely in the grassy area you can see part of the other side of Stevio as it cuts across back and forth.
On top of yet another pass for a group photo with the glacier in the background. When we crossed over the pass we went into a heavy cloud and we could only see about 40 feet in front. The roadway was about one American car length wide with mountain on one side and nothing on the other.
And yet another view from on top another pass as the fog rolls in.
We had a wonderful Itallian lunch with our friend Ron.
A view of the restaurant.
Did I mention we ran into some fog. It was like pea soup on the other side of the tunnel.
You never know what you'll run into over there. I liked this.
We helped this gentleman out. He was coasting down the mountain. He had a V35 Moto Guzzi from like 1912. Well maybe not 1912. He had broken his clutch cable. He had a number of new cables stored under the seat. He sure looked the part to riding that old Guzzi.
Well thats going to have to do it for today, I hope you enjoy.