Swiss Alps Self-Guided Motorcycle Tour

Seven nights in the Swiss Alps, self-guided, from two base hotels at Interlaken and Sils, with riders on their own bikes.

Troyes comes first on the way out, then Interlaken by way of the Doubs Nature Park and Goumois, with a free day there for Oberhofen Castle or the Lauterbrunnen and Trummelbach waterfalls and the Schilthorn cable car, which stood in for a mountain-top clinic in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Sils follows over the Furka and Grimsel passes, which were used for the car chase in Goldfinger and have changed very little since, with a tunnel cut into the Rhone glacier that can be walked into on the way over. A free day there offers the Ofen Pass to Glorenza, the Stelvio and Umbrail with a run down to Bormio and Tirano, or the Maloja Pass to Lake Como. The Fluela Pass and Davos carry the route home, with a possible stop at Titisee in the Black Forest.

Seven nights of bed and breakfast, four evening meals and the return Eurotunnel crossing are included, along with the GPX routes, the kit list and the itinerary; the other meals, fuel, parking, admissions and the vignette are not. Eight days with two bases and two free days is a tight schedule for Switzerland and a well-chosen one: almost everything on it is a named pass. The high passes are generally open from late May to October, and the Swiss vignette is needed for the motorway sections. Switzerland is also the most expensive country in the range to eat and refuel in, which is worth allowing for.