Hi all,

I have been viewing this forum over the past few weeks and really enjoying the content. Btw, I'm Wayne. A 28yo Irish guy living in Dublin. I ride a Vstrom DL1000.

I am planning a Europe/Alps trip for 10 days in July 2014. I am limited to 10 days as thats how long the boss has said she will leave the kids. With this in mind I have decided to ship the bike to/from Munich so I get maximum time where I want to be.

We have done one Europe trip before, last year, but traveled with a group of other bikers I know/met here in Ireland and one guy planned the whole thing, hotels, routes etc.

The trip was enjoyable, however I did find out very quickly that I didn't like riding in big groups (12 bikes, 15 people) so I split from the main group, was joined by another two bikes and this was a lot more fun. We followed the routes, met the other guys in the evening etc. but rode as a group of three bikes.

The second thing I learned very fast last time is that 350-400kms is too much to be covering per day in the alps if you want to spend some time off the bike rambling around towns etc.

With the above in mind I am thinking of roughly going in the direction in the link below; however I am nervous about selecting the roads we will actually travel. The route I done the last time took in some great passes, in fact it was a trip of one great pass to the next which makes me want to just follow a similar route again but on the other hand I want to have an adventure finding new roads and new towns. Why am I nervous? Because I am worried I will get there and end up on one crap road which leads to the next crap road.

Any advice is welcome. We start and finish at Memmingen Airport, we want to visit Lake Maggiore and take a day off there, and the other half is thinking she would like to spend a night in Venice too. Other than that we are open to suggestions, I'd like to get the B500 in the Black Forest but not a deal breaker. We are planing on camping with the odd hotel here and there.

Edit: I should add that this route is just a rough direction/countries Id like to get in.


Route