Another Epic Trip About to Begin!
Once again this year I am fortunate and blessed with the opportunity to take another epic trip. On Sunday, June 18, I will depart on a month long journey. This journey is a combination of work and vacation.
For the first leg of the journey, I will be traveling to the UK for work. A portion of my work team is based there and it has been several years since I have been there to meet with them face-to-face. One of the team members I hired at the end of last year and I have not even met face-to-face yet. We are both looking forward to finally meeting each other after working together for more than 6 months.
For the 3rd leg of the journey (yes, I will come back to the part 2 shortly), I will be traveling to India for work. Again, I work with people there on a regular basis, but have not had the opportunity to meet any of the current team members face-to-face. I will be spending 1 week in India.
Now, back to the second part of my trip! I am going to be riding motorcycle in Switzerland, Italy, and Austria for 11 days! I am doing the Alps Select tour through the company Moto-Charlie. Charlie, the company owner, (a one man show as far as I can tell), has been leading tours in the Alps for 16+ years. Charlie lives in New Hampshire but loves riding in the Alps and thus does a couple of tours a year in various parts of the Alps. Charlie arranges the bike rental, makes all the hotel reservations, and leads the tour. He is very specific in all his information that he likes to ride and puts on many miles every day; sounds like my type of tour!
On, Friday, June 23, I will fly from London to Zurich, Switzerland. From there I will take a 1.5 hour train ride to Thun (Switzerland). This will be the starting and ending location for the tour. For the next 11 days, we will ride in various parts of the Alps with the primary focus on Switzerland and Italy. I am sure there will be many highlights to the tour, but the most famous mountain pass we will ride is Stelvio (seen below). It is the highest paved mountain pass in the Eastern Alps, and the second highest in the Alps at 9,045 feet.
This tour will be very different than the 5 day tour I did in Italy back in 2013. One of the major differences is that for this tour, we will moving to new hotels on a regular basis (6 hotels in 11 days) where on the previous tour, we stayed in 1 hotel for the entire duration. That means we must pack light because we have to carry everything we need on the bikes as there is no other vehicle to carry the luggage for us.
On July 4, we will return to Thun to end the tour and then on July 5, I fly to Mumbai, India to begin that part of the journey. I will return home on July 13 if all goes as planned.
I will do the best I can to update this blog while we are riding. Depending on the time available as well as the internet connection I have, there may be lapses so be patient with me!
I appreciate all the positive comments I get on my blogs. I am glad you enjoy them. I also find them beneficial for me to help document and remember the trip. It is easy for the days to blur together and the time to fly by. All too quickly the ride is over. Pausing each day to write a few words and share a few images help cement the experience into my long term memory. There may be a day (hopefully not for a very long time yet!) when I am no longer able to participate in such a tour, and having these memories of past rides will be an important achievement to look back upon.
I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do!
For the first leg of the journey, I will be traveling to the UK for work. A portion of my work team is based there and it has been several years since I have been there to meet with them face-to-face. One of the team members I hired at the end of last year and I have not even met face-to-face yet. We are both looking forward to finally meeting each other after working together for more than 6 months.
For the 3rd leg of the journey (yes, I will come back to the part 2 shortly), I will be traveling to India for work. Again, I work with people there on a regular basis, but have not had the opportunity to meet any of the current team members face-to-face. I will be spending 1 week in India.
Now, back to the second part of my trip! I am going to be riding motorcycle in Switzerland, Italy, and Austria for 11 days! I am doing the Alps Select tour through the company Moto-Charlie. Charlie, the company owner, (a one man show as far as I can tell), has been leading tours in the Alps for 16+ years. Charlie lives in New Hampshire but loves riding in the Alps and thus does a couple of tours a year in various parts of the Alps. Charlie arranges the bike rental, makes all the hotel reservations, and leads the tour. He is very specific in all his information that he likes to ride and puts on many miles every day; sounds like my type of tour!
On, Friday, June 23, I will fly from London to Zurich, Switzerland. From there I will take a 1.5 hour train ride to Thun (Switzerland). This will be the starting and ending location for the tour. For the next 11 days, we will ride in various parts of the Alps with the primary focus on Switzerland and Italy. I am sure there will be many highlights to the tour, but the most famous mountain pass we will ride is Stelvio (seen below). It is the highest paved mountain pass in the Eastern Alps, and the second highest in the Alps at 9,045 feet.
This tour will be very different than the 5 day tour I did in Italy back in 2013. One of the major differences is that for this tour, we will moving to new hotels on a regular basis (6 hotels in 11 days) where on the previous tour, we stayed in 1 hotel for the entire duration. That means we must pack light because we have to carry everything we need on the bikes as there is no other vehicle to carry the luggage for us.
On July 4, we will return to Thun to end the tour and then on July 5, I fly to Mumbai, India to begin that part of the journey. I will return home on July 13 if all goes as planned.
I will do the best I can to update this blog while we are riding. Depending on the time available as well as the internet connection I have, there may be lapses so be patient with me!
I appreciate all the positive comments I get on my blogs. I am glad you enjoy them. I also find them beneficial for me to help document and remember the trip. It is easy for the days to blur together and the time to fly by. All too quickly the ride is over. Pausing each day to write a few words and share a few images help cement the experience into my long term memory. There may be a day (hopefully not for a very long time yet!) when I am no longer able to participate in such a tour, and having these memories of past rides will be an important achievement to look back upon.
I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do!
I'm looking forward to the updates!
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