As I was the only one who woke up early today so I made myself a coffee and sat in front of the house with my laptop. I had to work but the connection was quite bad and I had difficulties to send the mails.
I also had time to think a bit. I like my mates but I was a bit frustrated with this trip. I understand the others, I really do but they are not the explorer type. They just came to relax and ride a bit. A bit. That is the essence. When I leave my family for 2-3 weeks I don’t do it to relax or to be away from them. I do it because I am doing something they can’t join or they wouldn’t like. Motorcycle trips are about freedom as much as about discovery. You can go to places you wouldn’t in a car or with the family. So if I’m away I don’t mind riding a few hundred miles a day if I can discover new things every time. But that wasn’t really the case now. Okay, that is not totally true. We’ve seen Andermatt and the area, the San Bernardino, the Como lake and a lot more. But their approach is to go back to where we’ve already been or where we’ve had a good experience while there were so many nice things in the area we didn’t see yet. On top of that I was just feeling I am wasting time by spending 5-6 hours every day waiting for everyone else to get ready or to wake up. Besides that the morale was at a low. Csabi got the news yesterday that his cousin’s wife died in a car accident and their two-year old son is in critical condition. We couldn’t reassure him. There are no words for these situations. And that made me miss my kids and family even more so I decided I’ll leave today.
Once everyone was up and we had our usual breakfast we left together for Lugano to refuel the bikes. It was 11.00 am. While they went for the lake to relax I headed to Andermatt on the motorway. It was just after noon when I arrived and the town seemed quite busy for that time of day. There were tourists everywhere – hikers and bikers. I parked my bike and went to buy some souvenirs and the usual stickers for my panniers. I had a very nice lunch in the sun on the terrace of the Gasthaus zum Sternen. I took my laptop and with a much better connection this time I manged to finish what I started this morning.
I took the Oberalppass to Ilanz where I opted to take the smaller road on the right side of the river towards Chur. There I took the road no 3 South to Silvaplana. That turned out to be a wise decision. The road is just awesome. Riding on the Julierpass felt like being on the Norvegian Fjords. The small road just winds up and down crossing creeks, rivers and tunnels carved in the mountains. I stopped from time to time to make some pictures and enjoy the scenery. I felt really good. I even forgot about all the bad feeling I had this morning. At Silvaplana I refuelled the bike and took the time to watch the many surfers enjoying themselves on the lake. I then headed into St. Moritz where I arrived at 5.00 pm with the intention of finding an accommodation for the night. It wasn’t all that easy and it certainly wasn’t cheap. I managed to find a decent alternative considering the prices I have been presented with during my search. I took a a room at the Hotel Sonne for 100 CHF (incl. breakfast). I went to the room to shower and changed into a more comfortable outfit and went to look around. You can feel the richness and abundance as you go around. Above almost every shopwindow you see famous trademark (mostly clothing) and people seem relaxed and happy. There was plenty of tourists though, mainly hikers. I couldn’t find any souvenirs this time as everything seemed to close at 5.00 pm.
Once back at the hotel I parked the bike and sat on the terrace with a beer to summarize today’s diary. As the sun sinked behind the cliffs the temperature started to drop quickly so at one point I had to get back to my room for a sweater. I think the idea of outdoor dinner wasn’t that good after all…
