Trans Alps (Germany/Switzerland/Austria/Italy/France)

Fourteen nights in a loop from Frankfurt, guided, across Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and France on a BMW 850GS, entirely on sealed road.

This is the operator’s only European tour and its most expensive by a wide margin, and the shape of it treats the Alps as one range rather than five countries’ worth of borders.

Frankfurt opens it, then the Black Forest, with half-timbered villages and the cake. Switzerland follows, with a full day on the Furka, Grimsel and Susten passes, which can be linked in a single loop and are among the finest sequence of hairpins anywhere. Lake Como comes next down the Italian side, then the Dolomites, with a day on the Sella Ronda, the circuit of four passes round the Sella massif. Innsbruck and the Golden Roof follow across the Tyrol, then Chamonix under Mont Blanc, Interlaken between its two lakes, and the Rhine Falls, the largest waterfall in Europe by volume, on the way back through the Black Forest.

The bike hire is included; the full inclusions are not itemised on the operator’s page and are worth confirming at booking. The passes are generally open from late May to October, which sets the season, and the Dolomite roads are busy at weekends in August and far better midweek. Fifteen days to do the Alps properly is about right, since the temptation with a fortnight is to cover ground rather than ride the good roads twice, and this route resists that by building in two full exploration days.