So I moved for two weeks from Pennines (Yorkshire) to Pennine Alps (Central Switzerland), gaining in the altitude and sunshine. The journey covered Zürich, Bern, Saas Fee, Lugano, followed by a more adventurous hiking and cycling in Pennine Alps.
The highest points of the trip:
Switzerland is a rare country that perfectly matches your expectations about it. The only unexpected thing was the flood, which was an insteresting experience for me, though terrible for the Swiss. Below you can have a look at photos of the flood in Bern. I also have two stories about cycling the flood, which are not well reflected in the pictures. First, after leaving the Grimsel pass I came across a sign that the road ahead was closed because of the flood. I talked to the hotel owner, who reassured me that it is still passable for a cyclist. So I went down to the valley, descended by 1500 m to come across a military post: three soldiers with machine guns blocking the road. I easily negotiated my passage with them (no bribe, no fight involved, the most civilised soldiers I've ever met). Soon I was able to witness what had happened a couple of miles further down: a flash flood destroyed the road and turned the stream of river Aare into a new direction to run over the main road (I had my luck with the permission to pass, I heard a story from another British cyclist who had been turned back a day before and had to go over Grimsel and Susten passes, a nasty extra climb).
Another problem with the aftermath of the flood had again a military solution. The Tourist Information office in Grindelwald reassured me that I can take Cycling Route 9 from Meiringen to Luzern as not affected by the flood, but they proved to be disastrously wrong. After Sarnen the cycling route disappeared and I had to follow a bumpy temporary road (of the type you can expect to find only deep in the country side of China). Finally I came to the river bank, where the road ended and a bridge was simply washed away by the river. There was a bypass going into the woods, which I followed, but it turned into an even rougher track and then into a footpath, which finally disappeared on a green grass meadow. I stopped there and suddenly the wheels of my bike went 2-3 inches into the mud (apparently the meadow was also flooded, then the grass grew above silt, so it concealed the marshland). I spotted two locals who were trying to ford another stream on the left. They were successful, so I followed them (the nearest point of return to the main road was about 1 hour behind me via torturous roads and footpaths, so I had to take the risk). OK, I forded the stream (about 50 cm deep, 7 m wide, so it was not too bad and quite refreshing for my feet, as I was riding in the sweating boots for the last 6 hours: I climbed Grosse Scheidegg pass earlier in the morning). There was a walkable footpath along the left bank. Then I spotted a normal road visible on my left, but I was separated from it but yet another stream. Finally I found a way of crossing it (there was a tree trunk lying over the stream). It was a sudden pleasure: after an hour of torture I was riding on a smooth paved road without any car miles before or after me. The only strange thing with the road was that it was far too good and far too wide: there was a clearly painted central line, but it was some 10 meters from the sides of the road. Then I was overtaken by a military helicopter, which landed in the vicinity, so I noticed the control tower, haki-painted radars around and a military transporter parked nearby. Gosh, I was riding on a runway of a Swiss military airbase and the last stream I crossed was actually a moat for the base. In the end I was lucky: I was not arrested as a Russian spy. It seems that the runway has been disused for some time (with the exception of the helicopter base), as the cycling route I was looking for (Route 9) also crosses the same runway at the very end of the airfield.
One thing I did not particularly like in the trip was the quality of hotels. In our recent trip to China we did not expect really high standards: you can tolerate some annoyances if you pay 15-20 USD for a double room, but even setting quality expectations aside we were happy with every hotel in China. In Switzerland the price of any reasonable accommodation starts from 100 USD per night, but one thing you cannot get for this price is quiet sleep. Swiss hotels (at least in this price range) mean thin walls and thin doors. You go to bed at the time, when the last of your neighbours decides to stop listening to their music or TV, and you wake up, when another one takes the shower. If a couple talks in the corridor, they talk in your room. The only two places in which we had quiet hights were Gyddisdorf in Grindelwald and Stürlerhaus on the bank of Aare in Bern (our windows on the ground floor faced directly a street, which could be busy, but the road was closed because of the flood, and there was noone else in our house). In terms of noise-protection, the worst was hotel Schmid in Lugano, where we enjoyed listening to a person snoring next door. However the restaurant in Schmid was fantastic, the best we tried in Lugano (simple Italian meals, but wonderfully cooked). The restaurant is definitely worth paying a visit, even if you are not staying in the hotel (it is next to San Salvatore funicular).
After Lugano I stayed overnight in Airolo, from where I went on a hiking trail over Gotthard pass (2108 m) to Andermatt, luckily without engaging in battles with the French, like Suvorov did 200 yeads ago (I was able to make this trip in one day, he spent about two weeks). Actually the whole Alpine campaign of Suvorov was slightly bizarre. In an early Napoleonic war between France and Austria, the latter requested Russian help in 1798. So the Russian troops under Suvorov's command landed in the Northern Italy, forced the French out of Milan and Torino and then went further to Switzerland over high Alps without any experience in mountaneering and communication with other regiments. They fought their way with two main battles (on San Gottardo and Devil's bridge north of Andermatt) only to discover that France and Austria already declared truce, so thousands of French and Russian soldiers died in vain (and the whole campaign had little reference to Russian interests). I thought that this military adventure had been long forgotten with the exception of Surikov's painting "Suvorov crossing the Alps", but I was surprised to find numerous monuments erected and maintained by the Swiss on the trail. Apparently they treat Suvorov (or Suworow in the German spelling) as one of the contributors to their liberation from the French occupation.
The route of the cycling trip was:
Even though the amount of climbing looks enormous, the route is manageable for any reasonably fit cyclist. On the road I met dozens of fellow cyclists with ages ranging from 18 to 70. When cycling in Yorkshire Dales I'm not used to being overtaken by others, especially on climbs, but things were different in the Alps. The most obvious reason is that they are better cyclists. On the climb to Furka Pass I was overtaken by a professional German team (I managed to catch them when they were resting at the top).
A more respectable excuse for being behind many others was the heavy bike rented from the train station in Andermatt. Travel guides describe train stations as a very convenient way of renting good-quality bikes: you can take them in one place and return in another. The problem I found is with the choice: at a train station you can rent either a heavy bike (a city bike with thick and heavy tires and pannier racks) or a very heavy bike (a real mountain bike with full suspension and yet heavier tires). There is no option of renting a normal road bike with light wheels. I was also taking my luggage in panniers (mostly clothes for walking after rides), so this contributed to the weight I was bringing all the time to mountain passes. A much better option should be to bring your own bike and transfer your luggage by a van. On the road I met a group from the British Cyclists Touring Club, who travelled in this way. We were together on a tough climb from Meiringen to Grosse Scheidegg Pass (see their photos) and they had a bit easier task: they were on their own bikes and without luggage. This is an option for the next trip. Actually my new British bike is better suited for cycling in the Alps rather than in the Dales. It's a race-bred bike, so its gears are shifted towards higher-speed riding, which might be a problem for the Dales, where 1:4 (25%) gradients are not uncommon. The highest gradient I climbed in the Alps was a mere 1:10, but it lasted for almost 15 km. In the end this is a bit tougher challenge ;-).
One of the pleasures of travelling is the people you meet: the world is full of marvellous people and you can discover this on the road. This time we had again several wonderful encounters:
I start with ethnographic photos from Zürich and Bern. If you want to go straight to mountain photos, click here. If you're looking for something more impressionistic, go to photos of the fog in Lugano. My personal favourites are:
leeds.ac.uk
Separate photos
