In 2008 my husband Richard and I joined our first Partitour to Austria. It whetted our appetite for motorcycle touring abroad and, as Richard had a long-held ambition to ride a Moto Guzzi back to the factory at Mandello del Lario on the shore of Lake Como, we jumped at the chance to join the IMTC Partitour to Lake Maggiore and Southern Germany in the summer of 2010.

Our first stop (before the tour officially commenced) was at Gina Bulot’s, about 30 miles south of Calais. Gina is a lovely friendly lady whose hospitality is legendary among the many club members who have visited her over the years. A superb meal followed by a good night’s sleep and excellent breakfast set us up for the next leg of the journey and our second night at Pagny sur Meuse in a Logis de France hotel. This was an interesting experience though not the best hotel we have stayed in. The following night at Andi’s Steak house in Schopfheim , close to the German/Swiss Border more than made up for it. A lovely comfortable hotel with very modern facilities and a beautiful meal eaten on the verandah, watching the adult storks on their nest on the nearby tall chimney, was much more the style we have come to expect from Partitour bookings. The next day we rode on over the border into Switzerland and started on the mountain passes I had been so looking forward to! Richard was, I think, slightly less keen than myself but the roads are good and the views spectacular. We were lucky in that the weather was sunny with clear skies. We crossed over the Grimsel pass, dropping down to the Rhone Valley with views of the Furka pass coming down to meet our road.

view down the Grimsel pass

Along the Rhone Valley we travelled through picturesque villages with wooden chalets clustered along the road, then we climbed up over the Simplon pass and down to cross the Italian border and on to our destination for a few nights at Lake Maggiore.

The hotel on Lake Maggiore

The hotel on the shore of the lake had splendid views of the mountains around. While there, various members of the party went on a variety of excursions – by bike, by bus, by boat, on train and on foot. Richard and I spent a day riding to Mandello del Lario and back which took us through stunning landscapes with pretty villages perched on steep valley sides alongside Lakes Maggiore and Como. We had a challenging day, Richard achieved his goal and we took photos of the bike and Richard outside the Moto Guzzi factory as planned.

The bike comes home

Other parties visited ‘Pinocchio’s Village’ and met a real live Guiseppe (a former member of the Italian partisans, complete with Second World War memorabilia including a Bren gun); some went up a mountainside on a cable car and had a bird’s eye view of the towns. We spent another day on a mountain train to Santa Maria Maggiore allowing us to explore another part of this lovely area. Santa Maria is a town perched high in the hills with some beautiful old buildings. We could have stayed longer but we had to catch a train from there to Locarno where we boarded the ferry which wound its way back down Lake Maggiore to Baveno.

Lake Como

From Lake Maggiore we headed north through Switzerland again, this time crossing the St Gothard Pass and then the Susten Pass and returned to Andi’s Steakhouse for another excellent evening eating, drinking, chatting and stork watching!

From there we travelled to Oberwolfach and spent a couple of nights at a lovely Gasthof in this little town. A day spent meandering around Wolfach, which is within walking distance of Oberwolfach, led us to wonder what all the river rafts were about and wish our German was more than extremely rudimentary – but at least we can order a beer or wine and attempt to order a meal.

Our last port of call on the official partitour was a return visit to Blankenheim in the Eiffel region of North Germany , to Hotel Finkenberg. We had stopped at this hotel on the previous tour and we were keen to go back to sample the hospitality (and the excellent food). The ride across country took us to familiar territory as we passed through Zell on the Moselle – where we had spent some time on the previous Partitour.

Since our previous visit to Blankenheim a good deal of work has been done at the hotel to provide a bowling and skittle alley which is used both by visitors to the hotel and by the locals. The last night of the Partitour included an entertaining game of skittles – played to a combination of German and Devon rules. Using the sort of jiggery-pokerey, which only Partitour organisers are capable of, the final scores of the two teams were absolutely equal!

A superb tour with lots of interesting places to visit, roads to ride and scenery to enjoy. We look forward to the next one!!