as every morning, we start out just before the sun rises – we want to get the most of the day. today, is the first of two days of driving across the width of italy. about two-thirds will be flat and then we will cross the apenin mountain region. View to the sea, sea and back (TW560) TWIKE in a larger map a disclaimer: as a child, i was fortunate enough to have lived in italy for about three years. this is why i speak fluent italian and have had a soft spot for this country since. i have many […]
TDM2014 – Day 4, Istria: TWIKE to the MAX!
our trip today is filed under TDM2014 *and* one-day-trip. we start in trieste and circumvent the istrian pensinsula and arrive back in triest. we have three learnings for today. 1. croatia/istria is extremely nice; there will be another TDM/TDI(stria) 2. the tour we did today is one of the most diverse you can have with a TWIKE in one day (more about this below) 3. ads with pictures of croatian coastlines that look unreal and photoshopped are *NOT* photoshopped and unreal: what you see is what you get! note: this will be a long entry! note2: if you get the […]
TDM2014: Day3, Dolomites and our first objective accomplished
today’s diet of passes consists of: passo duran: 1605m passo zoldo: 1430m (keep in mind that today we are starting from much lower altitudes – 250-400m) after a good nights’ sleep we wake up refreshed and are pleasantly surprised by the view from our room: this promises to be a very nice day indeed! (naysayers: finally getting it? 🙂 ) we start our trip today with full batteries and can roll and recuperate at 98%-100% most of the first 30 kms. our route takes us away from the big roads and from little village to little village. around us the […]
TDM2014: Day2, up and down – all day long
today, we have many, many passes to cross: (and are looking forward to it!) Umbrail: 2573 Stelvio: 2780 Nigerpass: 1774 Karerpass: 1745 Passo di San Pellegrino: 1918 this is our route for today: View to the sea, sea and back (TW560) TWIKE in a larger map the day starts grey but dry. with a fully charged twike and our hotel just metres away from the start of the umbrail pass, we start our ascent with virtually 100% in our batteries. the umbrail pass is very, very steep. the pictures cannot really convey the challenge TW560 went through. after just 20 […]
TDM2014: Day1 – to the end of switzerland
finally: we’re on our way! it’s been a long time we’ve already planned this trip and been talking about it. after getting employed again, i felt it in order to resurrect the plan and during the few weeks before i start working to get TW560 the R&R it deserves 🙂 as usual, jc arrives at around 0620 and we load all our stuff into the TWIKE. although everyone around me was convinced that our first driving day would be grey and rainy, i told everyone to shut up and believe in the sun. well…as we started out, it was dark […]
TDM2014, 8-9 days around the mediteranean
we’re happy to announce another one of our longer TWIKE aventures. the goal this year is to visit the three northernmost points of the mediterranean sea (this quest takes us all the way to croatia, crossing the width of italy to genoa and back to switzerland. (blue lines)) – this is why we call this challenge “Tour De (la) Mediterranée” as usual, we are going to try to stick to the blue lines as closely as possible and see what happens. since this map is somewhat more complex than the usual ones, google can no longer display all waypoints in […]
one day trip, part2: exploring beautiful switzerland
since the blog entry for the first part of the day was getting quite long, i’ve added this second entry for reading convenience. we take up the action after having very nice lunch at the silwängi alp hut and are on our way down to the schönisei valley. arriving at schönisei, tw560’s battery is fully charged at 414V and ready to take us over 3 passes in one charge! (about 6000 metres of altitude delta in total) at the top of glaubenberg-pass (a very narrow street where busses and trucks have to take 30-min turns, since they cannot cross) a […]
one day trip, part 1 – exploring beautiful switzerland
i’m very happy to live in switzerland…and humbled by the beauty of this country. that said, as a foreigner, i might be more susceptible to switzerland’s culture and beauty than most locals. whilst risking to repeat myself – if you’ve not yet been to switzerland… you absolutely have to make plans to visit! jc and myself haven’t been travelling too much together lately. a few weeks ago, jc headed off to northern germany with TW231 for a 3-4 week trip crossing bavaria, the czech republic and former eastern germany on his own. he went alone, since i’m currently less mobile […]
vogese alps, take 2
my trip to the vogese alps just a few weeks ago was extremely nice. i couldn’t stop talking about the beautiful landscapes, quaint little villages and the very nice chalet jc and i stayed in. my wife and i then decided to retrace the same route during the week-end around may 1st. View two-day trip in a larger map the drive to freiburg was really nice and relaxing, no rain and no feldberg-recharge, beautiful views – the place jc and i chose for recharging the TWIKE last time also “recharges” people in other ways – it hosts a multitude of […]
Vandalism – Day3
The next day promises to be be a brilliant one – all the grey clouds are gone and i make my way back to delémont. i get off the train and am truly looking forward to a very relaxing ride back home when, coming around a corner, i am greeted with a very unusual sight. from a distance one thing was clear, TW560 had been pushed over and the canopy was open. i had a very bad feeling creeping up in my stomach. getting closer things turned out to be worse than expected! TW560 had been pushed around, rolled around, […]