Fast track to Italy

Deep in rural France the next village that we came across would be lunch stop. Within a few twisty kilometres our oasis came into view. A church, Great War memorial and main square completed the typical French scene. Opposite the war memorial, listing names of brothers sacrificed on battlefields further north, was the village's centre of activity, the bar.

Gnarled, sunburnt old men sipped their white wine and liqueur cocktails, meeting each new familiar face with the customary handshake of French greeting. Two foreign motorcyclists caused a slight distraction as we asked for coffee and croissant to sustain us on our trip east to Italy. The day was very hot and although other liquid refreshments were on offer coffee was the best option to keep us going until that night's stop, wherever that was to be.

We were on a six-day European ride taking in two-wheeled sport, motorised and non-motorised. First stop on the route was to see the brave young men who hurtle around race tracks across the world competing in the Moto GP series. The names might not be as familiar as their four-wheel counterparts but Messrs Rossi and Lorenzo are crowd pleasers with their exploits and the fans at Le Mans enjoyed every lap. Getting out of the circuit took some time but it wasn't too long before we were heading south-east and on to Italy.

You have a choice in France to either use the toll motorways, autoroutes or the slower side roads. If the French have been the "old enemy", they now have swung the other way with their love of one of our exports, the roundabout. The minor roads are littered with roundabouts that slow progress and can make the more interesting side roads tiresome. If you are in a hurry, use the autoroutes and pay extra. If time is not an issue, enjoy the tree-lined side roads and stop for a break every now and then. After a night at Vierzon, we headed into Switzerland after negotiating the customs point at Geneva. We planned to stick to ring roads around major cities and eventually we found ourselves riding north to Lausanne and towards the Simplonpass and Italy. As we climbed ever higher towards the snow line the temperature gauge showed a drop of nearly 20C.

The clouds gathered and the gloom descended as we ascended. Finally the pass was reached and soon we were riding through acres of young apple trees down to the warm, cosseting sunshine of an Italian valley and the town of Domodossola. We found a town centre hotel and were allowed to park the bikes in an inside store room, straight off the road. The evening was warm as we enjoyed a couple of replenishing lagers

in a pavement bar watching the world go by at a much slower rate than the previous 350 miles.

The good night's sleep that we needed ended abruptly when the town woke up, about 6am. Street cleaners and delivery drivers shouting to one another, the buzz of mopeds and the recycling lorry collecting glass did little to give us the much needed extra couple of hours that we going to be valuable as we set out to take on Milan.

The city's drivers take no prisoners and Italian white van man can show his British counterpart a clean exhaust as speed limits seemed notional and lane markings invisible. The correct road north appeared and we gladly left the madness of Milan's motorways behind to travel the less frequented road around the top of Lago d'Iseo though the beautiful town of Loverre and yet another welcoming coffee. This time it was chilled coffee served, oddly enough, with cheese puffs and crisps as a side dish.

The next day saw us standing on a hillside to watch, as my friend calls them, acoustic motorbikes. The Giro d'Italia was passing though. This national professional bicycle race is much less overstated than its French opposite number as the Giro allows easier access to the race. The riders looked drawn as they toiled up the climb of Palade pass in the late afternoon sun but the race was well into its third week and bodies must have been tired. They arrived in two bunches with the roadside tifosi shouting out names of their heroes and of the eventual race winner, Ivan Basso.

Then it was back on the motorcycles and off to Austria over the Brenner Pass. We now saw our first rain of the trip and decided to take the motorway over the pass. Lorries appeared well disciplined and drive at a sedate pace on the inside lane giving the faster moving traffic chance to pass. Over the top and we were in Austria, buying our motorway permit and heading for a night near Innsbruck.

Austria allows smoking in public places and after a couple of stops at hotels and inns looking for a room I started to be glad of anti-smoking legislation back home. Eventually we settled on the Gasthaus Goldener Adler in Wattens. Warm and dry at last, we enjoyed the Austrian hospitality. It was obvious that another guest had enjoyed it too much as he lay in the corridor snoring loudly, clutching his mobile phone, as we headed down to breakfast and the thought of another day riding in the wet.

The plan was to leave Austria, pass through Switzerland and just get into France before the big push home. Progress was slow in the rain and some of the endless, sodium lit tunnels did little to help progress. Switzerland came and went and we crossed into France at Mulhouse with the roads drying.

Just outside Nancy we stopped in the small village of Champenoux at a hotel on a bend in the road. This was to be a typical one-star French hotel, great food and drink and judging by how we felt in the morning, too good.

We tried the regulars' drink by adding an unknown liquid to the local beer. After two of these, my legs seemed to disappear.

All that was left was a push across northern France, taking in a damp Verdun, to arrive at Boulogne ready for an early tunnel crossing the next day. We crept out of the hotel at 6am, started our engines and moved off as quickly as possible to allow other guests those last few minutes of deep morning sleep. We slipped on an earlier Euro Tunnel train and in a whisker were back on British soil with just the trip back to Yorkshire to do raising one of life's questions. Why is it that a journey measured in miles seems to take longer than one measured in kilometres, even when it's the same distance?

Mike Cowling travelled to France via Eurotunnel www.eurotunnel.com 08443 35 35 35. Folkestone to Calais in 35 minutes. Prices start from 44 per car, two-day return.

YP MAG 10/7/10