Sigh... some of this is going to seem to be re-litigating last summer's tour. I'm pretty much over that. Really. But...
In the course of cruising YouTube, I found some recent Edelweiss tour videos. AFAIK folks were having a good time, the groups seemed to be 5-6 bikes at the most, and the one guide I saw was very much "up". The direct opposite of my experience. The point being, it's a crap shoot about how the tour, in a general sense, will go. One facet of any tour I've looked at is the use of "three and four star hotels". Sounds all very posh and glamorous. And expensive. The "stars" refer to how many toys (pool, spa, sauna, massage, workout and on and on) there are, not a Michelin rating (stops at three and only a few places are so blessed). That's a ton of cash for, ultimately, not much. By the end of a hard day on the road, a workout room isn't my next stop.
The "secret roads"... spend time with a good map and a number of interesting roads show up. Spend some time with Google Earth to "overfly" a "secret road", and it's no longer a secret. But, really, on a limited time budget, it's a matter of triage with slowly exploring the outback taking second place to "pass bagging". And the same for "secret passes". If one has a summer to hunt and sniff around, there's a lot to find off the usual routes. No question about that. But, again, with a limited amount of time, that's probably not going to happen.
So a tour will cover the obvious places, use many (but not all!) of the common routes, and use the usual stops. And there's no surprise in any of it.
This time around I wanted to check off some obvious boxes, but at least try to mix things up a bit, too. Originally I planned on having two weeks, but that just isn't going to happen this time. So I'm making the best of what I can with what I've got.
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