Italian Alps & Dolomites Motorcycle Tour

Good morning from the Dolomites. We arrived here last night and today we will be heading to Cortina. We're not too sure about what roads or passes we're going to be heading on today. We kind of want to scope out the day and see how things go. So we think we might be doing the Nizia pass and there's a couple of other roads that we definitely would like to hit but we'll see how the day goes because it's around 210 kilometers to our hotel tonight in Cortina. But obviously with the Dolomites roads and they are so twisty and turny that could take up to six hours. So definitely bear that in mind when you're planning your route. Kilometers in the Dolomites are a little going to take you a little bit longer. But we've just had breakfast here and we're just tidying up the apartment that we stayed in last night and then we're going to head off on the bikes. It's going to be a very exciting day and looking good. It's another sunny day as well. Blue skies again. Yeah and this place that we're staying in is absolutely stunning. Look at the views from the kitchen and the little breakfast nook through here. Look at that. Perfect blue sky day. So yeah we need to get the panniers packed up, need to get our suits on and then head off on the road. I'm going to have a protein shake and we'll see you guys in a bit when we finally set off. So we are just riding through a lot of little Italian villages in the northern part of the Dolomites. Heading south now towards Bozen and then we're going to be skirting around the city from there and heading, yeah kind of a southeast I guess isn't it, to Cortina. There's a lot of passes around that region. So we're hoping to do a couple of them today, maybe do another one or two tomorrow. But there's so many different roads and routes to explore in this region you could spend months here. Yeah there is infinite possibilities. Fortunately we've got two nights in Cortina so we'll see what we can today and then tomorrow we'll plan another loop to like finish off the bits that we didn't get to see. That's another lovely little village here isn't it? Yeah really pretty. You ride through so many though in this part of the Dolomites. This one's got a beautiful tiled roof. I think it's starting to get a little bit more mountainous as well so we mustn't be far off from from the heart. First fuel stop of today just before we hit the big passes that we're about to do. We have loads picked out. I can't remember all of the names of them but I know one of them is called the Nizha Pass. That's what we're going to be heading to now but we've just pulled in. Gonna fuel up really quickly and then head on to hopefully what is going to be an amazing day in the Dolomites. So we're just getting our first little glimpse at the Dolomites at the end of this road as we're riding through Bozen which is a very crazy city and we're just heading out now. That clarified brigades on a different road so that's good. Italian cities always stress me out man. This guy just went through a red light. Yeah I'm not even We have left Bozen now and are heading up to our first little pass of the day. We've got about 18 minutes until we are directly on the path in the little village of Tears. Some bikers pulled over here but everything's okay. They're all good. We're just gonna be continuing on riding. It's a really nice region. Between Bozen and Cortina I think is the best place that you can base yourself when you're here because there's so many roads and so many passes to do so whether you picked Cortina or Bozen to be based in that's totally up to you but either way you're gonna have some great roads whichever route that you do choose. We'll leave a link in the description with our exact route so you can follow it if you'd like to get some inspiration. As you can see the view right now is pretty incredible as we're heading into the gorge. First Dolomite pass, here we come. As you can just about see on the sat-nav it's quite a calm one. There's a few switchbacks and I found this one through some research online and a few books that I read so hopefully it's a nice very quiet pass. The road surfaces are brilliant and you can see the Dolomites popping through in the background. It's looking good. It's nice to get back to the business place really. I don't think we got here last year. No we didn't. Last time we was here we were on the 1250 hp. Yeah that's right. These are nice curves, plenty of space. Lovely and gorgeous road conditions just been resurfaced. Wow look at all the green on the rocks. It's a really lush area actually here. And there's no speed limit on the sat-nav. What is that? It's 90. We've been riding in Switzerland too long. Butchering the Italian language but having fun doing it. Although it's predominantly a German speaking area here isn't it? It is, that's true. And I think it's Tyrol is the name of the area but they speak a dialect which is basically based on German. Look at those ahead of us. They are the famous, I don't know if they're called the fingers or something but they're awesome and they almost look like well how I would imagine Patagonia looks. I've not been there myself. Not yet. Not yet. It's on the list. It's on the list. If you have been to Patagonia drop us a comment. Yeah if it looks recognisable. Maybe it's not even comparable. Close yeah. Look at the way the mountains just present themselves by each turn as they peek through the trees. It's such an awesome place and they've come into view in no time at all. Wow. We are now at the very top of the Karen Pass. We've just passed the sign and we're about 20 minutes from our next pass but we've got to finish this one first. There's loads of places at the top of that pass where you could maybe grab a hotel which would be awesome to ride these roads in the early morning. Don't you think Sean? Absolutely. Although today it's Sunday and the roads are really quiet. There's plenty of cars parked up for people doing hikes but in midday on a Sunday I thought it'd be quite busy but it's rather empty so that's great. Temperature is 20 degrees which is the perfect riding temperature for us. Nice and cool and also not too cold at the same time Pordoa Pass or Podia Pass. I forget now there's so many passes around here but this is a beautiful pass and it's going to lead us all the way to Cortina where we will be staying tonight. There it is, Pordoa. Something like that. Anyway, it's a fantastic pass and we're going to ride it all the way to Cortina and we'll be on it for the next hour or so. We are now at a altitude of about 2,000 meters and we're at turn 816 heading up. They're nice big shroofy corners on these lovely turns, Sean. Yeah, these are really ones you can enjoy and have a fairly relaxed but rewarding ride on these. It's not like the Stelio where you've got a bit of anxiety for every corner because you don't know who's going to come down or if you're going to have to stop mid-corner but here there's plenty of space so yeah the Dolomites makes for an absolutely lovely enjoyable ride so I recommend this one for all levels. We are nearly at the top now of the Pordoi. It's P-O-R-D-O-I. I think you're right there actually. It is Pordoi, isn't it? It is insane. Look at this. Can you see what we're riding into? Absolutely insane. 2,167 meters that's why there's snow on the floor. It's got a little bit chilly too, 18 degrees. We've got Evan and Wendy behind us now. Wendy in front on the 750 and Evan behind on the 850 cruising up these roads. Sean on Shadow in the 1250 up front also tootling along keeping the team together riding up nicely. Yeah, it's important to enjoy this ride, take it nice and easy and give yourself a bit of time to maybe look around at the surroundings as well otherwise you can get so focused on just riding you actually miss what you came to see. There's the top of the pass. Yeah, we'll pull in in a second. We are at the top of Passo Pordio. You've got a few restaurants here, a cafe and also a gondola that I think takes you up to the top of one of the peaks here. Sean has just been off flying the drone, he's just here. We're gonna get back in the saddle now and head further on this path. I think it leads on to a pass called Sala or Salio or something like that. Then we'll keep going. Can you see these peaks behind me? They are incredible. They're so different from the Alps. They look like shards that have just been thrown into the earth. They're absolutely awesome. It's been a fantastic day in the Dolomites. I think whenever we come here, we always think, why don't we come more? It's such an awesome place and we're so lucky that we live so close to it. It's not very far we're entering Vento. It's the other side of the pass. Is it still the same pass as it? I don't know if it's called the Sala Pass or something, but maybe I'm wrong. Pordoi is on everything, so I'm guessing it's definitely the Pordoi Pass. All newly resurfaced too. I was just about to say that. Yeah, it looks like it's been resurfaced. We appreciate it, your surface work. We are 39 minutes from Cortina and there is another epic mountain range just on the horizon there that's coming to view. It's absolutely huge. It's so impressive to be riding through here. So I think we're dropping down into that valley and then back up again to the other side. It's been a great day today. Now we're looking forward to get back to the hotel, have a drink, have a relax, and then we plot our route for tomorrow because tomorrow we can do a nice round trip and we don't have to have the panniers either, so we'll be a little bit lighter. So that should be a fun day too. We've just been riding and a castle has just come into view. Looks awesome. A brick one. We take castles for granted I think when you live in Europe, but our friends from New Zealand there have never actually been in a real life castle because obviously it's quite a new country and they don't have castles there, so it's a real treat for them to be able to see all these castles and everything. In fact, it must be quite difficult knowing when to stop and when to go and see something because there's so much history here in Europe. Clear, Sean, by the way? Yeah, as well as it's been really nice to see things through their eyes. We know Europe's our playground, so to say, so it's nice to see their joy and excitement of seeing things that, yeah, as you say, castles we definitely take for granted as we literally used them as playgrounds when we were kids in Wales. Very true. Here it is. We can just about see it through these trees perched there on the rock. That's a really cool one. Ben wants to ride up front for a bit. It goes through the mountain, see that tunnel hairpin? Oh yeah, it's crazy. To reduce the sharpness of the bend, they put it through the tunnel. It's really cool up ahead, there's some hairpin switchbacks going up the side of that rock but it looks like they were too tight to actually make the hairpin, so they've tunneled into the rock face and we're going to ride through that in a second. I think it looks really cool. I don't think I've been on anything like that before. No, I don't think we've done this road before which is a crying shame because it's fantastic. Yeah, you can't do them all every time but that's the reason we come back. There's even more roads we haven't done again. We're looking forward to coming back. Emma was saying that she'd like to come back in the autumn times when they get the golden colours, so maybe we do that if we have the time this year. Right, here we go, here's the tunnel rock hairpin. How cool is this? That's awesome. And we are here in Cortina, or at least the region of Cortina. There's the sign for it, we are in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Dolomites. This one we've done before but I remember we headed up there last time. Yes, we did. It's really hard to find these on the map where you've been before but you sure recognise them when you're here. So we've arrived at our hotel just on the outskirts of Cortina. It's just up the hill there. Parked the bikes up around the back and there's a whole lot of other bikes to keep them company tonight. I think there's a big tour group here. The hotel was completely booked out so I'm glad that we booked this one in advance otherwise we might have been struggling to find a room. So the plan is now we've just had a shower, got changed and we're going to head out down into the town in Cortina. I think it's just a 10-minute taxi journey. So we're going to grab a cab and head into town and get a drink and maybe a bite to eat. But the hotel is beautiful and it's in a really good spot. There's the others there, ready to go out. You had a good day guys? Absolutely. Just amazing. Best riding ever. We're here in the city centre of Cortina. It's a lovely little town. We took a taxi from the hotel. I think it was about a 10-15 minute ride and it was all down some really cool hairpins. So we've got that to look forward to tomorrow. Taxi cost about 25 euros. Seems a little bit steep but if we wanted to stay in the town centre tonight we would have had to pay three or four times what we're paying at the hotel. It's on the top of the hill. So it's much worth it, much more worth it getting the taxi. We're going to look for a little restaurant now and see what we can find. We have just arrived in a place called Il Ponte which is a restaurant and pizzeria which when in Italy, come on, it's got to be pizza and pasta. But this is a good allergy-friendly alternative because it's got gluten-free, lactose-free and vegan options. All of the free things. It's gorgeous in here. Traditional wooden build in place. Looks like it's got loads of local wines as well. So we're going to be spending the evening here then maybe one more wander through the streets of Cortina. We just crossed the road where the tourist road starts which is probably where we're going to go for a ride tomorrow. You can recognize it because it has the Olympic rings. I don't know when the Olympics was held here but it was many years ago. But the sign is still hanging above the bridge there and that marks the start of the tourist road. So we're gonna go order dinner now and then yeah, as Em said, we'll have a little walk around town later. I'm really excited for a pizza though. Pizzas have arrived and it's clear that a lot of effort has gone into making these. We've got a bit of spinach that's just been slapped on there. Some tomato sauce. What a great job that's done there. But it's gluten-free so we can't ask for much more but we're gonna tuck in now. Time for dinner. We've not long got back to the hotel. We've got the taxi back up to the hotel. We're staying at Hotel Argentina which is just on the top of the hill there by Cortina. It's actually quite a nice hotel. Rooms are really nice and most of them have got awesome views. Anyway we're gonna head to bed soon because tomorrow we're gonna go explore a little bit more of the Dolomites. Not sure of the route yet but we'll probably discuss that over breakfast in the morning which is about 7 30. But I think we'll have a little bit of a lie-in tomorrow as it's not such a big day because we're staying in this hotel again. But the room is really nice isn't it? Yeah it's a really great room and a great hotel right on the pass which is super cool because in the morning I'm pretty sure we're going to be hearing some bikes whiz by to wake us up. We might get woken up by the sound of music of some engines. Anyway that's good night for us and we'll catch you again in the morning.