One of our favorite international destinations for two-up touring was Italy. That is no surprise, after all, since we just had to hop over the Alps to get there. Depending on the route we chose, we had to cross either Austria or Switzerland first, though.

Most of the times we opted for Austria and crossed over the Timmelsjoch, a small and very curvy pass that was closed to traffic over the winter, i.e. from October to May. Even when the pass was open, we generally encountered very little traffic, but all sorts of other things, as you can see in the picture on the left. Sometimes we chose other passes, such as the "Stilfser Joch" on the right. All of them offer an impressive, sometimes unique riding experience.

Once we got out of the higher altitudes, we reached some beautiful country full of little villages. The roads were mostly in good shape, but all the little Fiats and big RV's made riding a difficult task. We therefore always welcomed the roadside fountains to get a drink of clear, cold mountain spring water.

Usually we made our trips with some touristic destination in mind, such as Venice or The Leaning Tower of Pisa. We nonetheless always enjoyed the ride itself. To escape the heat of the day, we would sometimes just stop on a backroad and take a rest underneath some shady trees. We never had problems doing that, and nobody seemed to mind.

For the night we always camped out on one of the numerous campgrounds. In particular during the high season this sometimes proved difficult, since all of Germany seemed to be hanging around in Italy that time of the year. But we usually got some spot anyhow since we just needed very little space to pitch our small tent and park the bike. So we just got squeezed in wherever there were a few square feet left. The only real drawback was the usually unacceptable quality of the facilities on Italian campgrounds. But you just can't have everything in life, after all.