Swiss and Austrian Alps Self-Guided Motorcycle Tour

Eight nights across the Swiss and Austrian Alps, self-guided, from two base hotels at Interlaken and in Tyrol, on the rider’s own bike.

The Champagne region comes first through the Montagne de Reims, then Interlaken by way of the Doubs Nature Park, with a free day there for the Jungfraujoch train, the Lauterbrunnen and Trummelbach waterfalls and the Schilthorn cable car, used as a Bond location.

Sils follows over the Furka Pass, where a tunnel is cut into the glacier and can be walked into, and the Grimsel. Tyrol comes next, reached either over the Ofen Pass by way of Glorenza in Italy or by the Stelvio option, which crosses four borders in a day and which RideWithUs call the full monty. A free day there offers the Hahntennjoch Pass or Innsbruck, then the Arlberg Pass and the Bregenzerwaldstrasse carry the route to the Black Forest, with a B500 section and Vianden on the way home.

Eight nights of bed and breakfast, five evening meals and the return Eurotunnel crossing are included, along with the GPX routes, the kit list and the itinerary; fuel, parking, admissions and the vignettes are not. Nine days with two bases and two free days is a sensible shape for the high Alps, where the weather can take a pass out of play at short notice and a second night somewhere gives it another chance. The high passes are generally open from late May to October. Anyone choosing between this and the guided version of the same route is choosing company rather than content, since the itinerary is much the same.