Lake Achensee Self-Guided Motorcycle Tour

Seven nights at Lake Achensee in the Austrian Tyrol, self-guided, with two free days from the base hotel and riders on their own bikes.

Vianden and the Black Forest come first on the way out, with a section of the B500 on the second day, then Achensee by way of the Rhine Falls, Lake Constance, the ski villages at Warth, Lech and Zurs, the Bregenzerwaldstrasse and the Arlberg Pass, which is a long and spectacular day’s riding in its own right.

The first free day offers the Gerlos Pass and the Krimml waterfalls, the highest in Austria, with an optional extension onto the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, or the Hahntennjoch instead. The second is the gentler one: Innsbruck, the Swarovski crystal works, Hall in Tirol, and a cable car or a steam train for anyone who has had enough of the saddle. The Silvretta Pass comes on the ride home, climbing to over two thousand metres with a reservoir at the top.

Seven nights of bed and breakfast, seven 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 vignette are not. Eight days with every evening meal covered is unusually comprehensive for this operator, and the two free days from one base are what the trip is built around. The high passes are generally open from late May to October, and the Grossglockner charges a toll and closes overnight. Achensee itself is the largest lake in Tyrol, with a steamer on it and a road along the eastern shore worth riding twice.