Motorcycle Tour Ireland to Croatia 2019 Ep 5C – LET’S GO TO LAKE GARDA & THEN “NOTHING BUT THIEVES”
Motorcycle Tour Ireland to Croatia 2019 Ep 5C – ROVERETO, NAGO, MALCESINE, CASSONE, GARDA.
Episode 5C ( This day has been split into several episodes as we make our way to Lake Garda ).
We left MONFALCONE and continued riding north towards Udine, where the weather we had hoped for was just getting worse, so so we headed west towards LAKE GARDA, as the weather there looked to be good.
As we travelled, we experienced lots of changing weather, along boring motorways, until we got in to the fantastic VALLE DEL PASUBIO, which offered fabulous scenery and was on the way back up to the mountains ( which were covered in cloud ), but were the route towards a town called ROVERETO, which I had heard about as it hosted a bike rally there. I had got chatting to two German riders ( Connie and Wolle ), who were at the Dublin Ferry, on their way back to Germany after touring Ireland. They joined us going to the No Bull Just Bikes & Beer Rally in Builth Wells in Wales, and we had a great weekend with them. They had been to the Rovereto Rally and strongly recommended it and its surrounding network of great biking roads. Rovereto is on the way to Lake Garda, so it had to be visited.
The roads around there were tremendous and we enjoyed this long day, getting to Lake Garda, at night but so worth the journey.
BACKGROUND.
After watching umpteen videos of people riding the Croatian coastline, I thought it looked fantastic – sweeping bend after sweeping bend through stunning scenery and that set the wheels in motion – literally… A trip was born !
I was joined on the trip by John ( Triumph Tiger 1200 ) and we have been lucky to have travelled many trips together over the years and Oisin ( Suzuki 650 V Strom ), who at 21 was heading for his first European trip, where we would do a mix of camping and hotels, and try and get through France and Italy as quickly as safely possible ( bearing in mind that it was Oisin’s first time riding abroad, so a bit of time was factored in, to let him acclimatise to riding on the right hand side etc, which we knew he’d be fine with ), and then ride through Slovenia and start riding down the Istrian Coast, where a friend had recommended visits to – Poreč, Rovinj and Pula – before continuing along the coast to Rijeka and heading south to Zadar ( where I had seen a harmonica had been built into the sea wall, so it played music sounds as the sea came in etc), and see the coastal towns of Spilt and on down the beautiful Dalmation coast to visit Dubrovnik and maybe see where some of the Game of Thrones series, had been filmed.
I had picked May to go thinking that June, July and August would be very busy……I soon learned that snow doesn’t leave the Alps until after May, and that we ended up riding through some amazing scenery and although it wasn’t cold, it was not what we expected at all. We saw places where Hannibal had come through the Alps with his elephant, saw stunning lakes surrounded by snow, camped in Italian farmhouse/restaurant sites – amazing local dished and wine, experienced the Bora winds, multiple local kindnesses, had the wits scared out of us, stopped by police and redirected, to the motorway as the road we were trying to return through, was now closed to motorcycles as it was now too dangerous with the winds, sent to a central motorway, where we had 3 degrees and a sleet storm, torrential rain as we tried to get through the French alps, turned back with roads closed by snow, – all character building stuff, but what a trip !!
I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride, and may be inspired to try this for yourself – (we are going back there in JUNE / JULY 2026 with the aim of getting to Albania if possible …and seeing the places we missed out on.)
Cheers
T
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