Switzerland part 1

So we had to get from Verona to Altnau, near Konstanz in Germany. Doesn't look too far on a map but it gets pretty lumpy let me tell you.

It's all rather difficult to describe going around about 153 hairpins in one day (48 alone going down the Stelvio Pass) so I'll just chuck in a few photos to give you an idea (stolen from a slideshow Simon put together)

The first pass

 

We had to go up this....

to get to this.

and have some of this

with a snow ball fight at the top

This was Simon's birthday and he has a penchant for accumulating passes in Europe and this is one he was yet to tick off. Not a bad way to spend the day I reckon.

On the way up we stopped beside a V8 Alfa Romeo, an Audi R8, a Porsche GTS and an Aston Martin which were being used for a photoshoot for EVO magazine. They did a little hooning up and down that stretch while we watched and Finn got to sit in the Alfa. 

Nice!

When we got to the top of the Stelvio Pass at 2760m I was very tempted to buy a cycling jersey with Stelvio all over it but resisted such temptation. It's a bit like buying and wearing a rainbow jersey (world champions jersey) if you only do weekend rides down beach road. Not the done thing!

Ben and I had a snowball fight at the top of the pass, (can't do that often in the middle of summer) and after a chocolate cake to celebrate Simon's birthday we continued on our way down the 48 hairpins, past a couple of glaciers to the bottom of the valley. We then had another pass almost immediately but this was a less dramatic affair, the Reschen Pass. However, near the top of the pass we came across a lake formed by a damn in the 20s or 30s which flooded a couple of villages. In compensation they got nothing, nada, zilch, except a get the eff outta here. The signage beside the lake doesn't pull any punches when it talks about the fascist government of the time. Almost made me blush. You can't see any of the villages except for the church spire which spookily sticks out of the water. 

Slightly spooky

This part of the world is South Tyrol which feels as Austrian as you can get, yet is in Italy. A post World War 1 thing apparently and the South Tyrollians aren't not very happy about it. Riots relatively recently evidently.

Then dinner in a lovely Austrian town beside a river. A fine beer to be had and we could tick off another country (we've have decided you can only say you've visited a country if you've had a drink there) and head in to Switzerland and Simon and Rachelle's place. We arrived after midnight after driving through a seemingly endless orchard.

We woke the next day to examine the farm these guys live on: a picture postcard dairy and apple/pear farm. We had a little wander to one of the fields behind the barn and discovered a cow and its calf that had been born 10 minutes before hand. 

 

Their place is on a hill that looks over Lake Constance. Absolutely stunning.

The farmhouse they live on is just outside the little town of Altnau which again is picture perfect. 

 

The farmhouse

Over the next few days we enjoyed the glorious setting and visited a few lovely places like Stein om Reim which is an old walled town stuck in the middle of the Rhine River, 

 Stein om Reim