Rob Walters combined his passion for motorbikes and skiing when he took to the slopes in Austria recently.
Rob and family went to Obergurgl and managed to go off-piste to visit Top Mountain Motorcycle Museum on the Obergurgl-Hochgurgl pass near the border with Italy.
Set in the stunning Otztal mountain scenery, at 2,200 metres it is Europe’s highest motorcycle museum. It is at the bottom of Timmelsjoch High Alpine Road, the most attractive route to cross the Alps.
Rob said that when he last went skiing in Obergurgl in 2005 there was just a T-bar lift to take skiers up the mountain but that had been replaced with a gondola with the motorbike museum in the base station.
“I was half expecting it to be quite a small museum but it was immense, with hundreds of motorbikes and some cars,” he said.
“I counted 10 Brough Superiors which sell for silly money.”
The private collection museum, the lifelong dream of brothers and motorbike enthusiasts Attila and Alban Scheiber, was almost completely destroyed by fire in January 2021.
The 4,500 square metre Motorcycle Experience World reopened, bigger and more spectacular, just 10 months later.
It now features more than 500 vintage motorcycles, from more than 150 manufacturers, dating back to 1894.
Other features include a 4D cinema, five different hi-tech simulated rides on the latest KTM motorcycles, including wind effects, on a mountain pass road and the Sound of Motorbikes makes you feel like a race rider on a MotoGP-winning bike KTM.
“I knew the museum existed but then it burned down and we went somewhere else to ski. I never thought that it would be rebuilt.
“We spent an hour in there but could have stayed a lot longer.
“It has everything. It just blew my mind. If you’re out that way it’s well worth a visit.”
And, in nearby Solden, there is ‘007 Elements’, a James Bond cinematic installation attraction. Solden provided some of the locations for the 2015 movie Spectre.
Visit the Top Mountain Motorcycle Museum website at www.crosspoint.tirol/en-home and 007 Elements at 007elements.soelden.com.