Alpine happy snaps

[ogden]

http://www.pre.org/album/Holidays/2009-Alps/index.html

A taster...



For the stories, I may show my face at the Shire tomorrow.

Looks like, fun. I wish I'd had time to get across the channel this year. Next year maybe, i fancy getting back to Italy. Might do Portugal and Spain too on the way to Boom festival (hippys and psytrance)

The Alps really is a fantastic area, all around it. Some cracking photos, I soooooo wanna go back there on a bike. Oh look 0% on a Versys with free panniers.

[ogden]

Originally Posted by plowsie

The Alps really is a fantastic area, all around it.

Some of it is. Switzerland I could happily never enter on a bike again. TBH I suspect the only reason we got away with what we did in Austria was because we weren't caught.

We had great fun in Bavaria but over toward the Black Forest things got a bit less enjoyable - maybe it's just their equivalent of North Wales but when members of the public start phoning the police to complain about your riding, things get tricky. Fast.

Originally Posted by ogden

Some of it is. Switzerland I could happily never enter on a bike again. TBH I suspect the only reason we got away with what we did in Austria was because we weren't caught.

We had great fun in Bavaria but over toward the Black Forest things got a bit less enjoyable - maybe it's just their equivalent of North Wales but when members of the public start phoning the police to complain about your riding, things get tricky. Fast.

Hmm yeah, I'm used to that round where I live TBH but I get what you mean.

In what way didn't you like Switzerland?

[ogden]

Originally Posted by plowsie

In what way didn't you like Switzerland?

They have a national 50mph speed limit and the locals stick to it like the penalty for breaking it is hanging.

They charge 40 euros to use their motorways even for a day (unless you sneak across the border somewhere else and hope for the best, not that I could condone that).

They're practically german, except they don't have the german cavalier disregard for rules and authority (!). At the top of the Grimsel pass we were given grief by some random biker who didn't like the way someone had done an overtake on the way up.

But the main way I don't like Switzerland is it took us an hour and a half to get out of the country and then only after two people coughed up 400 euros a piece for overtaking on a solid white line. Harsh!

Lovely scenery, shame about the rest.

Hence why I still like Switzerland, I have only cycled on the roads

Sounds harsh and not fun.

400 euros is a slightly large amount

[ogden]

Originally Posted by plowsie

400 euros is a slightly large amount

It cost us 260 each (1300 in total) to get out of Germany.

The swiss aren't keen on fixed penalties, they love income-related fines, so the 400 euros was a credit card authorisation (or, as the cop put it, a "deposit") - a Judge will decide what the ultimate amount is some time this month. Apparently it could be more than the deposit.

Originally Posted by ogden

It cost us 260 each (1300 in total) to get out of Germany.

The swiss aren't keen on fixed penalties, they love income-related fines, so the 400 euros was a credit card authorisation (or, as the cop put it, a "deposit") - a Judge will decide what the ultimate amount is some time this month. Apparently it could be more than the deposit.

Bloody ell!

[skeetly]

Eye watering...
How come the fine in Germany? Did oberfuhrer disgruntled von beemer-driver film you?