Motorcycle Journeys Through the Alps and Beyond: 5th edition Paperback – August 13, 2019

These books are amazingly detailed and full of information. I am just jealous because the multi-talented author has had the opportunity to ride so many roads and visit so many towns and villages throughout the Alps. Highly recommend it.

This is a must read for trip planning to the Alps and Dolomites for all motorcyclist.

Finding the information and descriptions very interesting and fun to read. Explains not only what passes to ride, but a bit on the history of them as well. Biggest issue is the photo maps are not very clear to read. Even with reading glasses the town names are hard to read and understand the reference points. Needs better photo re-production and resolution to make this a great companion book.

The book was a great resource for our trip. It was the only book we used. We made no advanced reservations, just picked up hotels and B&B's on the fly. We covered only 5 chapters. More trips to come.

I bought this copy for a friend based upon my experience with my copy. This is the indispensable guide for motorcycle touring on the Alps. Forget the guided tours - buy this book and the National Geographic amp of the Alps and you’re all set.

For all of the buzz about this book and the "King of the Alps" claim, this book is disappointing on many levels.I have no idea about what's available in the UK. I'm not aware of any other US produced Alps guides, making this book the only one easily found in the US. Despite the comments that follow, the book is about the only choice for planing a trip in any part of the Alps. ("The Alps" is a huge area from the Spanish/French border and into Slovenia - it's not "only" France, Switzerland, and Austria/Northern Italy)Place names... I'll work with the German speaking parts of Switzerland, Austria, and the Italian South Tirol. The Southern Tirol is in Italy but 60% of the population speaks German. Place names exist in German and Italian. This complicated for many people. For example, Jaufenpass in German is Passo di Monte Giovo in Italian. Some passes, like Jaufenpass are usually known by their German name while others, such as Passo dello Stelvio, are known by their Italian name. The same thing happens with place names. Reschensee in German is Lago di Resia in Italian. Hermann uses the Italian names and sometimes mentions the German names. Some maps use both, some use one or the other. This leaves the reader to sort out which place is which, depending on the language used.While the book lists a huge list of passes, the number of passes described in any measure is far less. And those descriptions often lack any real detail. Passo dello Stelvio / Stilfserjoch is a good example of this. There is one road up and over the pass, as usual. The distinction is the east road (coming from Prato Allo Stelvio / Prad am Stilfserjoch) was built originally by the Austrians (when South Tirol was part of Austria). It's still in good repair. However, what really matters is this road has 48 hairpins on the way up. For riders new to hairpins, this is not the place to start learning. The west road, towards Bormio, has fewer hairpins, a few tunnels, and the road usually is under repair or should be (Hermann does mention this). He says something about the "Austrian" road is often closed. Perhaps in early spring or late fall (definitely closed during the winter), but otherwise, rain, sun, fog... it's open. He says there are a couple of hotels on the pas, and lists two; there are four immediately on the pass' saddle and two or three more while coming up from Prato/Prad. He's correct that the top of the pass seems like a circus, with lots of motorcycles, bicycles, cars, campers, and more. But it's part of the fun of climbing "Stelvio". And he misses on one of the institutions: Bruno's wurst stand. Bruno stands under the yellow awning over his grill, turning out great wursts, with all kinds of toppings including Louisiana hot sauce, all while delivering a non-stop monologue in at least four languages. Not every pass is worthy of or needs this sort of detail. But the "big name" passes are often shortchanged, and so is the reader.The maps, accompanying a chapter about a collection of passes, are little more than a rough idea of where the passes are. There's no detail (route numbers, if available) about the roads with passes. Converting the pass locations to GPS-friendly locations is a challenge. And some pass names don't make it to a map, but are mentioned only as "go over passes A, B, and C to get to Some Big Pass". Finding international borders is another challenge - they're small and faint. Crossing from Austria to Italy or Germany is almost unnoticed. In some places crossing into Switzerland is, too, but in some places, it's very much "passport please". It's worth knowing which border is being crossed.His descriptions favor biker (that is, rider) hotels, bike cafes, and biker meeting points. That's fine for people who want to join a mob of riders, but some people want to settle down somewhere for a little less chaos and maybe talk with only a couple of riders. Those places get far less mention.In general, hotels tend towards the expensive. They offer spas, massages, a pool, workout rooms, and more, on top of the restaurant / dining room. If all that's needed is a place to get cleaned up and get some rest, there are far less expensive, but still quite good, alternatives. Those details are limited. There is some other "how the local folks do it" material that is... well, maybe that's how it looks to a foreigner, but it's not correct. And then there's the language issue.I don't speak Italian, or French, but I do speak German. Hermann simply has, in very specific ways, little respect for the language. German contains four letters not used in English. These letters, "a", "o", and "u" (I hope Amazon gets this right - ä ö ü) all have two dots over them, the "umlaut". They are as important as "a", "o", and "u" are in English. But Hermann dismisses them as somehow quaint and not needed. That is simply not true. For anyone who can't write or type the letters, the accepted form is to add an "e" after the umlauted letter to make "ae", "oe", and "ue". However he spells Flüelapass (or Flueelapass) as Fuelapass. Most search engines will quickly tell anyone using them that "Fluelapass" is misspelled. (The four letter looks like this:ß or like an unusual "B". It represents two S' together. The most common example is to see it used for the S' in "strasse" - street. This letter is used less and less, and can be safely ignored. But if it shows up somewhere, it's useful to know about it.)The final point is about the index. It's confusing. Going back to Passo dello Stelvio/Stilfserjoch, the index lists it (as Stelvio pass) on pages 164-166, 169, 171, 175, 178. Pages 164-166 have the written description, but photos continue to 167. Page 169 has the map including Stelvio. If pages 171, 175, 178 have the word Stelvio on them, I can't find it. Stilfserjoch gets one entry, 164, even though 164-167 are about the same place.The book is usable, but I don't recommend regarding it as the final word on the Alps. Use touring and adventure web sites to find people who've been there. Consider looking for British guides, often available on the web in the usual selling sites. As the countries' tourist information offices for information - as always, web search engines are very helpful. For those who speak even a little German and know about on-line language translators, there's an excellent series of German guides available on Amazon. Follow my reviews for more information about them. However, in the end, Motorcycle Journeys Through the Alps is flawed, but better than nothing...

Bought this after a receiving a recommendation from a fellow rider on ADVRider.com. This book is literally jam packed full of the best roads in the Alps and the author does a fantastic job of breaking things down into manageable chunks and rides. Really solid travel companion!

Unexpected insight and directions in an unexplored world by me. Great!

sehr tiefgehende Infos, gefühlt jedes Hotel an der Route beschrieben, viele Fotos, gut um sich Anregungen für die eigene Tiur zu holen

特にない

Questo libro suggerisce degli itinerari motociclistici sulle Alpi molto belli. In appendice anche alcuni itinerari in Corsica e sui Pirenei.Molte utili informazioni per pianificare un bel viaggio.

Compré este libro el año pasado al no encontrar ninguno en castellano que cubriera viajes por los alpes en moto. Se vino de viaje y fué una gran ayuda al decidir que puertos cruzar. Además de este libro, fuimos preguntando a otros moteros y a los dueños de los campings donde dormíamos, y nos indicaron varios puertos fantásticos.También incluye rutas por los pirineos, y por córcega.Lo mejor: Plantea un formato de "base de operaciones", un hotel o camping donde duermes varios días y desde donde haces rutas con la moto descargada (dejas el equipaje en el alojamiento). Este planteamiento es perfectamente compatible con llevar la moto en carro para no hacerla 3000km de autopistas a lo tonto cruzando Francia.Lo peor: Está pensado para un nivel adquisitivo británico, así que muchos de los hoteles y restaurantes recomendados son muy caros para el español medio. Y está en inglés. Pero si lo estás mirando, es que eso no es un problema serio para tí.En general una gran ayuda para quien no sabe por donde empezar a planear el viaje, o quiere hacerlo sobre la marcha.

We purchased this book just before setting off from the UK on a two month trip through Europe. We had already used Toby Ballantyne's wonderful Motorcycle Tours of Western Europe book last year and were keen to see if John had some other roads that Toby didn't. He did. We used it quite a bit on the Swiss/French border around Eggiwill, then northern Italy between Lecco and Lake Garda via many narrow mountain passes. Also some passes in the Dolomites.We hope to use some more of his roads on future trips.It wasn't quite as easy to trip plan as Toby's book but nevertheless, a very worthwhile book.