The multi-frontier Tour 7 of the GLME Summercamp. From Imst in Austria, through Switzerland and then back to Austria over the Reschen Pass (1507 m.) to Italy for a coffee pause on the shores of the Reschensee, where they speak German and Italian.
The Italian route to the Passo dello Stelvio is famous and notorious for its 49 numbered hairpin bends. It’s a challenge which attracts motorcyclists in huge number plus sports cars and cyclists. The gradients are steep and the hairpin turns tight plus it’s a marathon because of the sheer number of turns.
Our two groups paused the col, 2757 m., for lunch watching the traffic chaos gradually building as the traffic increased.
Down the Swiss side to the Grisons Canton and the Swiss National Park. Deep valleys, wonderfully green. We stopped for our mid-afternoon break at the village of Ardez, one of those Swiss villages in the Engadine in the canton of Graubünden that seems to run like clockwork and looks like it has stepped straight off the lid of a box of elegant chocolates.This is frictionless borders in action: a ride over three big cols and in/out of Austria, Switzerland and Italy not once showing documents.