Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Tours
in Europe and Beyond
Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Tours
in Europe and Beyond
Summary: This is a fully guided, round-trip tour to the Harley-Davidson European Rally in Faaker See, Austria.
We have deliberately chosen a route to get to Austria that includes riding some of the best roads in the Alps Mountains. Riding in the Alps is simply incredible! The route includes some fantastic roads in Switzerland, Austria and Italy, including Stelvio Pass, Gavia Pass, plus the best roads in the stunning Dolomite Mountains, Grossglockner Pass., Timmelsjoch Pass and many more! Check out the route on the map at the bottom of this page.
The tour starts in Munich in Germany and we take 7 full days of riding to get to Faaker See. We arrive at the European Bike Week on Thursday 10 September. We are then at the rally for 3 nights. The rally in Faaker See is one of, if not the, best gatherings of motorcycle riders in Europe.
Our hotel while in Austria is in Villach, a short free shuttle bus ride to the rally site.
We depart from Villach on the Sunday morning and take two days to ride back Munich. On the return journey we ride through Austria and Germany.
If you have been to the rally in Faaker See you will already know how good it is. If this would be your first time, you are going to love it!
Price for
2026 Prices
Two riders sharing a room, price each
£3,700
Single rider in his/her own room
£4,365
Rider and pillion sharing a room
£5,675
This tour has just about everything a long motorcycle ride needs. It is probably our most comprehensive and diverse tour which makes it the reason we have run the tour many times since 2014.
From the rolling hills of southern Germany to the high alpine passes in the Alps, to the roads in Austria with fast sweeping bends, this tour encompasses just about every type of riding there is. One day you are admiring the scenery as you ride and the next, the road is challenging your riding skills.
We have chosen mainly quieter scenic roads, well away from cities for the route to the European Bike Week rally in Faaker See and we stay at comfortable hotels along the way.
Combine that we attending the largest motorcycle rally in Europe and this is one heck of a tour!
The rally will host live bands, a custom bike show, dealer stands, demonstration rides and much more. The setting of the rally around a lake is ideal, as the event is hosted in a number of close-together locations around that lake.
If you want to ride wonderful and scenic roads, with someone else making all the arrangements, then riding with Tour1 is for you. We are hugely experienced tour operators having ridden all over Europe and we know where the best roads are.
You will arrive in Munich today and the group will assemble.
The tour price includes the hotel for tonight which is located in the Old Town part of Munich, right in the city centre. The tour leader and back-marker will meet you at the hotel and we will likely visit a Beer Garden tonight.
First thing this morning we collect the rental motorcycles, which you will arrange.
We will use a short section of Autobahn to get away from Munich, but soon the scenic roads start as we enter the lower Alps Mountains.
Near Mittenwald the Alps rise up into view in front of us as we ride south. Soon we cross the border into Austria. As we head south west across Austria the scenic roads continue and we ride some fabulous twisty roads, including two named passes.
We stay the night in a small town in south west Austria, very close to the border with Italy.
First thing this morning we ride Norbertshöhe Pass and very soon after, we enter one of the most beautiful countries in Europe, Switzerland.
Fluela Pass, a definite Tour1 favourite follows and we will stop by its lake at the top of the pass for a photo. Soon we reach Davos, a famous ski-town.
We then head north towards Flims and then head west towards Andermatt via Oberalp Pass, close to the source of what later becomes the mighty River Rhine.
Towards the end of the day, we ride Susten Pass, high up in the Swiss Alps. This is an amazing twisty road, with tunnels and a glacier – we will stop a few times here for photos.
We stay high up in a small town in the mountains tonight.
This morning we ride two of the best roads in the Alps, Grimsel Pass and Furka Pass. Grimsel is a joy to ride, with its twisty sections and fabulous views. One of those views is of distant Furka Pass and seeing it from one mountain to another is truly spectacular.
As we climb up Furka Pass, you may be reminded of the famous car chase scene which was filmed there, for the James Bond film, Goldfinger. We will stop for coffee opposite the iconic but abandoned Belvedere hotel.
We then head back up Oberalp Pass and ride back along the Rhine Valley, with its sweeping fast bends. At Chur, we head south, and stay the night in this part of southern Switzerland.
Today we ride to the eastern side of Switzerland before crossing the border into Italy.
We start the day riding south and soon use Julier Pass to head east towards famous St Moritz. We ride through the Swiss National Park and ride Ova Spin, the pass within the park. At Santa Maria, we turn south once more and start the climb to the some of the most dramatic riding in Europe, if not the world, Stelvio.
As we climb, we near the border with Italy, and ride the wonderful Umbrail Pass, as it twists and turns its way up to the border. As soon as cross the into Italy, we are at one of the worlds most famous roads, Stelvio Pass. We ride both sides of the pass and stop at the top in a couple of places to look down on the amazing road. Stelvio Pass is the second highest pass road in the Alps. It has 75 hairpin bends – enough to satisfy the needs and any biker!
We stay the night in Bormio, at the bottom of Stelvio Pass.
Today has three amazing roads to ride.
First is the dramatic Gavia Pass, one of our favourite roads in the world. With its glacier and moon-like terrain, this is a wonderful road. Then it is onto Tonale Pass, followed by the second amazing road, the stunning Mendola Pass, which clings impossibly to the side of the mountain as it drops down towards Bolzano.
In the afternoon, we ride north out of Bolzano (on very twisty roads) and then ride the fabulous Timmelsjoch Pass, which straddles the Italian / Austrian border.
This morning we visit the Mountain Top Motorcycle Museum and spend a few hours there. The collection is excellent as are the views climbing up to and down from the museum.
After we ride back down Timmelsjoch Pass, we head towards Vipiteno, riding Jaufen Pass on the way. After skirting Bolzano once again (but on different roads to yesterday).
Bolzano is at the western side of another favourite area to ride, the Dolomite Mountains. Its jagged craggy peaks and great roads make this an ideal place to ride motorcycles. We will stop to look at Karersee, a stunningly beautiful lake with amazing colours. We stay the night in a hotel with perhaps one of the best mountain views in the world.
We start today by riding the best parts of the Sella Ring, a wonderful road that circles the Sella Massive, a huge outcrop of mountain in the Dolomites and the views are simply spectacular. There are numerous mountain passes here and we ride most of them! After that we head east towards Cortina and onto the Parco Regionale Dolomiti D’Ampezzo, an area of forests in low-lying mountains.
Soon we cross the border into Austria once more and ride through the Gail Valley, a wonderful road with fast sweeping bends.
We arrive in Villach late afternoon and make our way to the hotel we will be staying at for 3 nights, our base for the rally.
There is always much to see and do at European Bike Week. The huge rally site at Faaker See hosts bands, dealer displays, demonstrator bikes, vendors, bars and all shapes and sizes of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. On our arrival day of Thursday, or perhaps on Friday morning, we will have a group orientation ride / walk to ensure you all know where the various rally activities take place.
For most of your time in Faaker See, from Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning, you are able to do as you please, whether that is ride in the local area, visit the rally site, watch some of the live bands on the many stages, or visit the custom bike show – it is up to you.
On the Friday afternoon we are likely to visit the custom motorcycle show.
On the Saturday, if you wish, you can join thousands of others in riding in the parade.
The rally site is just a few miles from our hotel base in Villach. Most people choose to travel to the rally site in the evenings either by the free shuttle bus, or by taxi.
First thing this morning we start our ride back to Munich, but we still have another of the worlds best motorcycling roads to cover, Grossglockner Pass. We ride that this morning and will likely eat lunch at the very top, at a cafe with the most wonderful views.
We then need to make some progress and use faster roads to get back to close to Munch. We stay near Tegernsee, in Germany tonight.
We have a short ride today to get back to Munich and this includes a short section of motorway.
We should get back to the rental dealership by 10am in good time to return the bikes and for you to get to the airport to start your journey home.
Our group sizes normally range from 10 to 14 motorcycles.
Each day, we normally start riding at 8.30am sharp and cover in the region of 110 to 200 miles. We try to avoid motorways wherever possible and only use these when there is no real alternative. We take mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks and of course find somewhere for lunch. Our plan is to normally arrive at that evening’s hotel by around 6pm.
We use good quality hotels – not super luxury and not bottom end, but mid-range – normally 3 and 4-star.
We ride at a pace to suit all of the riders. We stick to all speed limits in towns, but in rural areas we ride at, let’s call them ‘more appropriate’ speeds. We generally ride in staggered convoy on straighter roads.
As we have pre-booked hotels and a schedule to stick to, we ride in all weathers. During any exceptionally inclement weather, we will pull over for short periods. We could experience a range of different types of weather, so bring waterproofs, just in case.
We like these tours to be about having a real adventure, riding on great roads with like-minded people. For that reason, we do not use a support van, but we always have a back-marker.
*Ride Difficulty Rating
Each of our tours has a difficulty rating and this tour is rated as ‘challenging’. That means this tour is for experienced riders only, with say, a minimum of three years of riding large motorcycles. You must have ridden on the right-hand side of the road before on many occasions and you must be comfortable with travelling in a group of riders and be able to keep a good pace within that group. We do not ride very fast, but at the same time, it is better if riders do not go too slowly.
The route will include many twisty roads, plus many high mountain roads with many tight hairpin bends / switchbacks. There will be some sections of road with steep drop-offs at the side and no guardrail. If you or your pillion are at all uncomfortable at riding at height, then this tour is not for you. If you are from the USA, please note some of the roads you will be riding are significantly narrower and have tighter bends than in the USA. All roads are fully paved. While there is not much motorway riding on the tour, as a guide, the group will be riding at speeds of 75mph+ on motorways. You must be confident of riding in rain and on wet roads.
Each day’s riding will be around 9 hours, with breaks. You must be able to ride all day. If you are at all unsure if your riding ability is good enough for this tour, then you must contact us by telephone to discuss.
I did the Faaker See tour with Tour1 in 2023. Had a brilliant time. Richard Jones, Oxfordshire, UK.
