But, this morning was COLD.  After a deliciously quaint breakfast, we packed up the motos, and the temperature gauges displayed 1 Celsius, just above freezing.  I had prepared in the week before, investing in Arctic rated thermal underwear, glove liners and a balaclava, and Alex had a heavy winter riding jacket.

But as we descended the other side of the mountain westward from Lugano, getting lost on little hillside switchbacks, where astoundingly modern houses perched on hillsides (many people parked their Maseratis and Lotuses on the street), it was cold.  However, the sun showed brightly on our backs, and most main highways go straight through mountain (ranges) for miles and miles, where the temperature fluctuates drastically.  Aiming for Locarno, the external temperature gauge on our bikes showed 2.5c, and then went up to 22c a few miles into a tunnel.

We crossed in and out of Switzerland and Italy, and we saw checkpoints where I believe we were supposed to stop, but whatever authorities in charge of border crossings just waved us through.  We stopped A LOT for photo ops, as every little town seemed to have a public waterfront promenade, specifically built around the most picturesque area possible.

I also have to admit I feel incredibly guilty.  Three or four days probably wouldn’t be enough to immerse myself entirely in any single one of these town’s cultures, and yet we’re spending minutes in each.  I made a joke about this trip being tantamount to speed-dating supermodels, as the days are fast, stunningly beautiful (to the point that it hurts how lovely everything is), but I’m left with the feeling I just got a glimpse and a taste of something really special.

We snaked around up to Locarno, and down the western coast of Maggiore, headed for Arona, back into Italy from Switzerland.  We passed through Ronco sopra Ascona and Canno Riviera, and a hundred other picturesque populations.  

 We passed hotel after hotel, with some palatial waterfront structures seeming to dwarf the fictional Grand Budapest Hotel (though it would fit right in with the funiculars and palm trees).

Stopping at an amazing flat area around Gravellona, I believe called Feriolo, we took some amazing pics with the snow-capped Alps towering in the background.
Our GPS took us to a ferry in Arona, as the light was beginning to fade, and we realized we hadn’t made hotel reservations yet.  It’s really the offseason here, so we have had excellent luck flying by the seat of our pants, booking hotels last minute, usually for under $100 or so.  I really wanted to see Varese, but the light was fading by the time we arrived, so we didn’t have too much time to explore.  I’ll always remember the vision on the highway I saw as we road into Varese though, of a sprawling terra-cotta metropolis, descending down a vast hill into a valley with distant massive tentacles of lakes licked the base of white capped mountains.
Even the Police drive MV Agustas in Varese, like this Tourismo Veloce.

With the next day’s ambitious journey in mind, we pushed on to Como, where we stopped into a little café, hooked up to WiFi, and made a reservation for a four-star hotel in a little town called Appiano Gentile.  We were surrounded with darkness when we arrived at this hotel, which looked to be in a blue collar area.  The room was absurd.  Everything was backlit with neon lights, with mirrors on three sides of the bed, with the mirror on the roof carved out in the shape of a four leaf clover.   There was a massive glass case with nothing but two tiny champagne glasses and a bottle opener.

The hotel was weird, so we left to get some dinner, but we couldn’t find a restaurant besides a McDonalds, which looked like it doubled as a truck stop.  I decided to stop at a grocery store, and we went shopping hungry, amazed at the prices, especially for wine, where no bottle was over $3.00.
 We bought a bottle of champaign, a large bottle of wine, an expensive bottle of grappa $4, three types of breads, two types of fresh cheeses, two packages of cured meats, olives, salad, tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, forks, two boxes of cand`s and more, and the total bill came to 32.79.  Elated, we went back to our bizarre room and feasted into the night. 

The Route:

Lost in Lugano

Parrocchia Cattolica

Luino

Gambarogno

Ronco sopra Ascona

Cannero Riviera

Verbania

Stresa

Feriolo 

Baveno

Arona

Varese 

Apiano Gentile

NEXT: IV. Circumnavigating Lake Como on BMW Motorcycles

When we planned our trip to Italy a few months ago, renting motorcycles in late November seemed silly, but I had checked the weather compulsively, and up until this week temperatures were still in the mid 60's.  I reached out to a couple rental outfits, though I was waiting till the last minute, expecting the weather to go bad.

Our original plan was to rent a couple of Italian bikes (preferably a Scrambler), but the forcast for Monday and Tuesday dropped twenty degrees. Saturday afternoon we finally got in touch with Claudio of CIMT, telling us he had two brand new BMWs, an F800GT and a F800GS.

The heated grips would turn out to be both necessary and amazing. Claudio turned out to be a really nice guy (though he thought we were a little bit crazy), and we were on the road out of Milan by 10:30 Sunday morning.

I have heard about Italian drivers all my life, but driving here seems tame compared to trying to get around New York City on a Ducati superbike. There are tens of thousands of bikes in Milan, and motorcycling is simply ingrained in the culture, whereas in New York I operate under the assumption that every other driver is actively trying to run me down, every time I get on my bike.  There are nearly as many women on the road as men, and everyone splits lanes. HOWEVER, signs and traffic laws in Italy seem largely optional. There are so many variations in traffic patterns, lane sizes, different vehicles and different transit needs, that no federal traffic mandate would apply to the totality of transportation.  And, if there were strict traffic laws, I also don't think Italians would pay them any mind. There is a different sense of personal freedom here, and a lot less dependence on the government regulations to ensure personal safety.

Como is only about 45 minutes north of Milan, but my bike needed gas, so we pulled off in an industrial area and tried to figure out how to transact for petrol.  For any aspiring Italian moto-tourists, BEWARE small gas stations.  Purchasing is done at a separate pump, needing a cryptic sequence of buttons to dispense gasoline.  I put a fifty Euro note into the machine, which did not return change; only a reciept with my balance (of about 30E), which we found out later could only be recouped at that particular gas station.

Domaso

A little before noon, we reached Como, where mountains towered in the distance. We rode past the city, through a series of tunnels (there are hundreds, if not thousands of miles of tunnels), emerging near Cernobbio to one of the most dramatic sights I have ever had the opportunity to see. 

One turn after another, endlessly snaking around the river; stopping only to take photos.
We passed through Menagio, and up around the lake, finally to Gravedona, where we stopped for lunch.
The weather was in the mid-fifties, and we were actually warm riding.  With several hours of light ahead of us, we decided to try to backtrack down the lake, and cut off over to Lugano to spend the night.  We made a hotel reservation at a bed and breakfast outside of Lugano called Grotto Flora, and were on our way. 

The road from Menaggio to Lugano was perhaps the most breathtaking ride I’ve ever done.  Straight up a city of slicing switchbacks through the town, then over the apex of the mountain, down into another grassy valley, where smaller lakes were framed by drastically hulking rock structures on either side.  We crossed the border into Switzerland without even stopping, which surprised us given the non-stop terrorism alerts for Milan we had seen on CNN over the previous several days.

We reached the Swiss side of the lake at dusk, and incredibly, the mountains here seemed to defy the laws of physics, rising out of the lakes as if giant rock formations had been thrust into the lakes themselves.  The roads in Switzerland were pristine, and as we road into and around Lugano, roughly every third car was a Porsche. 

It was nearly dark before we found our B&B, a quaint 300+ year old hillside manor house, owned by a woman named Flora, who had thousands of Christmas kitsch and delicately arranged knick-knacks all around the building.  However, when we arrived, she was nowhere to be found, and when we called she was out at a birthday party.

We hopped back on our bikes to explore a little more of Lugano and find dinner, but the Lebanese bar we found seemed less than appetizing, so we got some bread and meat at the local gas station.  Arriving back at our cozy little B&B, the restaurant was bustling, and Flora was eager to tell us about her local specialty: ribs from a suckling pig.

After a generous liter of wine, three layers of ribs arrived, barely seasoned, and Alex and I agreed that this might be the best pork we had ever tasted. The entire house smelled of buttermilk and polenta (also delicious), and after a little too much food (which is becoming a bit of a theme on this trip), we laid down our weary heads on the lacey sheets draped over antique bedframes and Persian rugs.