Friday 22.04.2011 - we rolled into Sondalo and quickly found our hotel. You could hardly miss it! It clung to the side of a mountain and overlooked the small village of Sondalo. Great. Greg hates heights!

Nevertheless, we booked in and then parked the P-D in the garage underneath. The driveway was a side alley down the side of the mountain with a 90 degree turn at the bottom. Clean undies for Greg after that one.

We found 7 German bikes parked there and later spoke with the owners and found they were away for the 4 day Easter long weekend.

One guy rode a 1999 Honda Goldwing; it was his sole transport, summer and winter in Germany. Greg asked him wasn't it too cold to ride a bike in Germany in winter - his reply, after touching his left temple with his left index finger, "It's all in the mind". Bloody cold mind!

We walked DOWN to the village and were so b*****ed that we wanted a taxi back - no taxis in town, so it was hoof it home!

Saturday 23.04.2011 - the big day - ride Stelvio Passo - or so we thought. We had been in Italy for 2 weeks and only one day of rain. The rest - clear, blue skys with sunny, warm days. With this in mind we set off towards Bormio, a town 20 km shy of Stelvio Passo. On the way in we were treated to two fine tunnels; the first 2700m long and the second 7 kay (yes 7,000 metres) long. We pulled in to Bormio and immediately hit a traffic jam. In the middle of the road were two Carabinieri (state police that dress like Nazi SS officers) directly traffic. Above them, on a big sign was "Stelvio Passo chiuso al traffico" - you can guess the meaning. Stelvio was closed! b*****!

We decided to ride to Tirano, a town about 40 km away and spent the rest of the day 'veggying'. We walked around, had lunch and gave the P-D a bath making her nice and clean.


On return to the 'house on the hill' (our hotel), did a google search and found webcam showing Stelvio Passo under snow! It turned out it hadn't been opened at all from winter! We shoulda done our homework!