We had been longing for the chance to return to Switzerland ever since our first tour there in 2002, and this year, finally, all the ducks lined up and we were off. Our originally planned contingent of four was reduced to three when Gavin had to cancel at the last minute, but we were still very much looking forward to a great adventure.

We were going to travel to Switzerland by land in one day this year, which meant starting very early at Newton abbot – 6.08am to be precise. In order to get ultra-cheap tickets we had bought a special LeisureDay ticket from Rail Europe, but that ticket was only valid if we took the slow train from Exeter to Waterloo. It’s hardly surprising that, once we had changed at Exeter to the 06:28 Waterloo train, we spent a good deal of time trying to catch up lost sleep.

Arriving at Waterloo at 10:19 we didn’t have far to walk to get to the Eurostar trains, which leave from Waterloo, so we had to admit this was an advantage in going on that route. We had to disassemble our bikes outside the Eurostar terminal and pack them into the bike bags we had brought with us, since Eurostar trains don’t carry whole bikes for some reason. There wasn’t a huge amount of space to carry out this operation, but an official told us it would be OK to do it by the wall in front of one of the three entry gates, which was closed at that time. Before we had finished, however, they opened the gate, and both Tao and Joe got told off by another station official for being in the way! Tao helpfully suggested it might be easier for them to scan a whole bike rather than a bag of bits.

Half an hour later we lugged our bikes through passport control, where full passport checks were carried out, and we were then able to board the 12:09 service to Paris, which sped through the tunnel once it had negotiated the slow tracks to Folkstone. Once again we were very sleepy after such an early start, and both Tao and Joe were caught snoozing on video.

We arrived at a very busy Gare du Nord station in Paris at 15:59 local time just as a thunderstorm was depositing its huge load on the city. Tao immediately found some luggage trolleys which made the task of carrying our bagged bikes and luggage off the platform a good deal easier, but this was only delaying the difficult task we faced of carrying everything through the Paris Metro to Gare de Lyon station. We would have far preferred to reassemble the bikes first, but since the TGV train also required bikes to be in bags, we just didn’t have the time to assemble and disassemble again. So we had no choice but to make the best of the situation. It was very hard work dragging bikes and panniers such a long way, and we saw virtually nothing of Paris while we were there except the Metro stations.

We caught the 1804 TGV train from Gare de Lyon for our four-hour journey to Lausanne in Switzerland. When the guard checked our tickets he found something wrong with them and surcharged us several Euros each, but it wasn’t really clear to us what was wrong with them. We welcomed the chance of a nice long rest after all the difficulties in Paris however. Michael was caught on camera enjoying the Millie's Cookies he had bought in London.

We arrived in Lausanne just after 10pm, a few minutes later than the scheduled arrival of 21:58. We had stayed at Lausanne hostel on our last visit but we had never ridden there from the station, since last time we started the tour at Basel. We knew roughly where it was though, so with a little guesswork we managed to find it. The hostel was still the prison-like concrete structure it had been in 2002, but we all had a good night’s sleep in our modern 4-bed room on the ground floor.

We had a bit of a lie-in this morning after such a busy day yesterday, finally getting up for our provided breakfast after 9am. Lausanne hostel is large, so breakfast was canteen-style but perfectly acceptable. Joe had a problem with his rear gear cable that needed sorting, as he couldn’t change gear at all. Before we left Michael demonstrated the satisfying sound made by the room lock when the card was inserted.

We had the rest of the morning to enjoy Lausanne, so we made our way past the Olympic building to the Vidy Promenade, on the edge of Lake Geneva, and followed the shoreline back into Lausanne. The sun was shining and the whole scene was every bit as good as we remembered from four years earlier. We could even see the Alps rising out of the mist on the far side of the lake.

There was also something new to see – a massive outdoor cinema screen and seating, erected for the summer at Quai du Vent-Blanc and sponsored by Orange. It was folded down during the daytime, but we were fascinated to know what it would be like to watch a movie in the open air after dusk.

We needed to get lunch, and whilst looking for a supermarket we found a souvenir shop filled with hundreds of cuckoo clocks. Next, we found a Pastry shop, which suited Michael perfectly, and finally the Migros supermarket that we had been looking for. We took our food down to the lakeside, at Place du Vieux-Port, where Joe entertained us by feeding a flock of acrobatic birds that could catch crumbs in mid-air. There was also a large group of schoolchildren having lunch in the same area, and we were not at all surprised when they turned out to be extremely well behaved.

Our plan today included taking a train halfway across Switzerland to Olten and continuing the ride from there. It took us half an hour to find the railway station, and then we just managed to buy our tickets in time to catch the 13:20 train. It was an impressive double-decker train, and when we were on board, we began to discover other features that made it better than any other train we had been on – there was ample space for bikes and luggage, close to our seats, and there was even a creche upstairs for toddlers. Tao called it a Super Dooper train, which seemed like a pretty good description.

We had to change trains at Bern, then found ourselves sitting near a Swiss teacher who turned out to be very interesting. We commented how well-behaved the schoolchildren had been at Lausanne.

At Olten we disembarked and resumed cycling, following National Cycle Route 5 towards Brugg. The weather was still fine and sunny when we started. Riding through Schönenwerd we came across two factory outlet warehouses adjacent to each other selling bikes and sports equipment. Tao found his dream bike, Joe bought a cassette and a fancy speedo, and Michael bought a cone spanner and a flashy orange cycling shirt. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that we were there for nearly an hour.

Continuing along Route 5, which followed the River Aare for the most part, we detoured at Aarau to get some refreshments from the Migros supermarket there, and while we were inside a thunderstorm came along and kept is inside a little longer than we had planned. Now rather late we set off at high speed through the rain along the woodland cycle path, but there was some kind of clay in the paths that dissolved in the rainwater, and Joe, who didn’t have mudguards, quickly got filthy.

Typically, the rain stopped just as we approached Brugg. There was a traditional Swiss water trough outside, so Joe washed off the worst of the mud out there. Somehow, Michael had lost his water bottle along the final section of cycle path, but there was no way he was going back to look for it now.

Brugg Youth Hostel was a very old building, and one of the consequences of that was that it had no internet. We had apparently arrived too late to get food, so after showering and settling into our room we were directed down the path to Brugg Leisure Centre where there was a Pizza Shop. We selected one from the menu, which the proprietor assured us was “a very fine pizza”, and indeed it was pretty good. There were a number of flies buzzing around however, which detracted somewhat from the experience. One of the bottles of condiments on the tables was called Maggi, something Michael had never heard of, so Tao, who knew all about it of course, brought Michael up to speed.

Back at the hostel we slept well in our ancient room, which definitely had plenty of Swiss character.

We had an acceptable night at Brugg youth hostel once we found comfortable positions in the sheet sleeping bags and got used to the constant dripping sound from the water butt in the courtyard outside. We had a provided breakfast this morning, and whilst it was nothing special, it was again OK. Before we left Joe fitted his new £15 speedo to his bike as the town clock struck ten, and then we were off on a hot, sunny morning.

We were following National Cycle Route 5 all the way to Zurich, so all we had to do was watch out for the signs that were visible if you kept your eyes open. At Dättwil, near Baden, we noticed a BMX track underneath a flyover so stopped there for a few minutes while Tao and Joe rode everything a couple of times, just because it was there. We agreed it was a very good way to use space that would otherwise be wasted.

Riding through Baden we saw numerous cranes in operation, as we noticed on our previous tour to the country, passed an HEP station and then a comprehensive Sports Centre where children were jumping and diving confidently off the lower diving boards. A double-decker train crossed Route 5 right in front of us at Kempfhof, and then our cycle route took us through a delightful farming village called Oetlikon – Michael filmed our journey through. At the far end of this section, near Lake Katzen, we came across an enormous field of sunflowers, and Joe couldn’t resist pulling a face on one of them to compete with others that had been similarly crafted.

Route 5 took us right into Zurich, but somewhere along the way we missed a sign and ended up riding past Flussbad Public Swimming Faciliy, a safe swimming area in a kind of canal that splits off from the river. There was a changing area and a diving board, and even a lifeguard waiting at the lower end in case anyone got into difficulty, although we didn’t think she looked too capable if anything were to go wrong. Joe, being an original Water Baby, just had to get in the water. First he went down the steps, but once out in the middle of the channel he found the current so fast flowing that he couldn’t swim back to the steps, so we waved as he was carried down to the grill near the Lifeguaard. Meanwhile some local children showed us how to really enjoy the water by jumping off the much higher bridge that crossed the facility – they really were fearless. Not to be outdone, Joe plucked up courage and jumped off the diving board, once again being swept down to the grill. But of course a few seconds later one of the local lads again showed us how it should be done by doing a proper high-flying dive off the board.

Picking up Route 5 again we followed the river all the way to the centre of town, next to Lake Zurich. We found a Migros Take Away nearby that had a kind of restaurant in it, so we were able to buy lunch there that turned out to be exceptional. Michael had wanted us to go on a boat trip this evening, but neither Tao nor Joe fancied that for some reason, so we planned to look around the town and museum and then walk around the lake this evening.

After Migros we came across the Victorinox Flagship store, selling every variety of Swiss Army Knife you could imagine. They had the world’s largest on display as well, for 849 Swiss Francs, but we really couldn’t imagine how such a large tool could be useful. We guessed it was quite clever though. When we got to the Swiss National Museum at 5.10pm it was sadly closed, so all we could do was look at some groupies setting up some kind of concert outside.

The hostel was a little way from Zurich centre, and someone had told us we could get to it easily by going to the station and following Tram number 7, which would go right past the door. Well we found the station, saw Tram 7 and chased after it, but it soon got away from us. At least we were headed in the right direction. It seemed like a very long way, but eventually we found the hostel, a very large modern building clearly designed to cope with large numbers of guests. It was so large that it had a lift, and the evening meal was adequate for 16 Swiss Francs.

Showered and fed, we set out for evening ride around the lake at around 8pm, which turned out to be nine miles there and back. We soon found the western edge of the lake, got our bearings for returning again later and followed the lakeside path around to the eastern side. There was a lovely atmosphere everywhere, with live music and people enjoying the evening in various ways. We all commented on how safe it felt here, unlike similar large cities in other countries. We were supposed to push our bikes along the path, but both Tao and Joe thought it would be fine to cycle slowly, so we all did.

At Zurichhorn we came across the Ball Fountain, and interesting water sculpture where the large sphere could be rotated in any direction as it floated on the bed of water. Just around the corner from there we came across our second open-air cinema of the tour, but this time it was evening and a large audience were entering ready for the evening’s film presentation. We didn’t see much point in paying to go in, as the film would probably have a German soundtrack, but we found a position just next to the screen, by the lake, where we could see everything. We had to wait 20 minutes for darkness to fall, then the screen was raised up and the advertisements started. We all thought it was a great idea, and if they had been showing a film in English we would have loved to go in and soak up the experience.

On our way back to the hostel we encountered more memorable scenes, with tasteful live music and singing by the waterside. Zurich is indeed a unique city.

Back at the hostel, to make sure we had everything for our breakfast tomorrow we asked the warden for some milk to put in the fridge. Unfortunately the warden wouldn’t sell us any, instead giving us directions to a BP garage that was supposedly only five minutes away. Well it was a lot more than that, being right down by the lake and half a mile in each direction – we needed rambling socks for that little journey!

We were sharing our room with a guest from Pakistan who was quite interesting.

Zurich youth hostel claims to be “one of the most modern in the world, open round the clock so you can really get to know Zurich, the little city on a global scale. The hostel has a roomy entrance hall and a spacious inner courtyard for the international globe-trotting community to meet for good cuisine and comfortable rooms in a quiet city location close to the lake”.

It went on: “Chat about your last Asian or American trip in the big entrance hall, exchange information and trips on the leisure activities on offer in Zurich, pick up the latest international news headlines on the big-screen TV while eating a snack or play a game of billiards - all of this at any time, around the clock, 365 days a year.”

After reading all that we expected great things as we went down for our provided breakfast, and to our surprise we were not disappointed. A girl from Turkey sat with us over breakfast and talked at length about our respective travels – all very interesting. As we left the dining room she was even telling us of her travels to America and Asia, just like the hostel brochure had told us she would!

When Tao had taken some video shots around the hostel we rode the two miles back into Zurich and went on a bit of a shopping spree in the Old Zurich area. This included walking up one of the towers of Zurich Cathedral, which gave us superb views all around the city. Soon after 12, however, we thought we had better get a move on.

We made our way out of the city more successfully than we had found our way in, eventually re-joining Cycle Route 5 not far from where we had left it. Joe was listening to his Sony Walkman while cycling out of the city, and because he couldn’t hear properly he nearly had an accident. He learned his lesson from that.

Somewhere along the cycle route we saw a strange sign that warned us about “Danger of Death”. We weren’t quite sure from where the danger emanated, but we managed to avoid death one way or another. We missed one of the cycle route signs and rode for more than twenty minutes before realising the signs had stopped, so we had to do some backtracking to get on the correct route.

A little further along the path was blocked by workmen digging up the road, and after wondering for a while which way to go we noticed some small orange signs that said simply “dev”, which apparently marked our temporary diversion route.

We got to Basserdorf, around 17 miles into the ride, by around 2.15, so detoured into the town to the Migros supermarket where we bought lunch. A storm came along while we were in there, so we ate our food under the shelter of the nearby bike stands.

Pressing on through Lindau and Wintersberg we came across a large field near a remote car park near Winterthur where crews were erecting stages, marquess and audio equipment for some kind of concert. It all looked very impressive, but we couldn’t see any signs about who would be playing.

There followed a long drag through forest tracks that wasn’t particularly inspiring. At Kolbrunn we came across some strange planks that had been laid across the river Töss in a kind of pedestrian bridge. A nearby information board didn’t help much as it was all in German, but we found out later it was a “Traditional Board Walk”, and it had clearly been restored to its original glory. Joe went over and tried it out.

As we were leaving Kolbrunn we looked up at the constant stream of aircraft that were passing overhead, on their way to a landing at Zurich Airport. There were literally about ninety seconds between each plane, which shows what a busy airport it is – rather like Heathrow.

We finally arrived in the village of Turbenthal, location of our hotel for the night, and were looking forward to hot showers, a good rest and some excellent food. We soon discovered, however, that the hotel was at the top of a long hill, so as we didn’t want to have to come down again later we went to the local Migros first to do our shopping and then did the climb, arriving at the Gyrenbad Hotel at around 6.15.

It was a nice hotel with comfortable beds and powerful showers. Meals were provided which were expensive but tasty as the torrential rain set in outside – we felt fortunate to have stayed dry all day, although thunderstorms were now forecast for tomorrow. Before we went to bed Tao and Joe washed their clothes in the bathroom, which made for an interesting video!

It was raining as we got up this morning, and the forecast was for it to continue raining all day. We did our best to ignore the weather outside as we enjoyed a provided breakfast of bread rolls, very nice smoked ham, Brie cheese and raspberry jam. We then took our time getting ready, looked at possible train alternatives in case the weather got really bad, then finally set off at around 10.30.

Having descended the hill back to Turbenthal, Joe decided to pay a visit to the local bike shop in order to buy himself a mudguard, as he was sick of getting plastered with mud on every cycle path, and sick of getting comments from Michael and Tao about his muddy coat! We lost our bearings a bit as we left the shop and did an unnecessary loop, but were soon back on Route 5.

It wasn’t a huge amount of fun riding all morning in the rain, and we couldn’t get the camcorder out to video the interesting places we passed, but it wasn’t too cold – around 16 degrees – so we plodded on and eventually reached Oberbüren, about twenty miles from the guest house, where some attractive Swiss cows were resting under a tree next to the Sonnenburg Horse Riding Centre. The rain had now just about stopped, which was better than we had expected, so we found a convenient bench by the River Thur and enjoyed our lunch there. Tao was not ashamed to tell us his sandwiches contained Pork Pate.

The afternoon ride was cloudy but thankfully dry. We continued along Route 5, following the river along forest tracks for a while, stopping at Riet to refill our water bottles from the delightful village fountain, and then riding through areas lined with fruit trees. At Steinebrunn we couldn’t fail to notice the cheese factory, which had a tower shaped and painted to look like an enormous block of cheese, complete with mouse. A little further along at Langrüt we saw our first ever robotic lawn mower, roaming around the garden doing its thing unattended.

We followed Route 5 right up to the Swiss border at Salmsach, then joined Route 2 heading south-east along the edge of the Ober Lake, which effectively forms the border with Germany. The route followed an electrically-powered railway line for several miles, and we guessed it might have been the overhead power lines that caused Tao’s speedo to start behaving very strangely while we were there.

There was a camp site at the end of the railway path at Buchhorn, and since they had a small shop we stopped to buy ice creams there. Next we rode along the shoreline at Abron Lake Park, and a little further along, after stopping at a tempting bakery, we had a chat with an old lady nearby. We reached Rorschach See hostel quite early, just after 5pm, and checked in at 5.15.

The hostel turned out to be really good – very modern, and with its own private swimming pool and water fun area between the hostel and the lake. Tao and Joe really wanted to enjoy these exceptional facilities, and since rain was forecast later they decided to go in first, before showering. The staff kindly turned on the pool and water slide for us, so we spent an enjoyable time swimming and using the slide. The temperature of the water was 20 degrees!
After showers we found out that the food was excellent too. The rain had now arrived, but we still decided to go for a short walk around the town, keeping to the covered walkways where possible. Some of the shops had Swiss Army knives on sale, but very few seemed to have any security on the windows. We presumed crime was virtually non-existent in Rorschach.

As we were going to bed we discovered Joe attaching stickers to his Nokia phone. He had apparently bought them from a “Girlie Vending Machine” for half a franc.

Rorschach See Youth Hostel was a very family-friendly establishment, with children running around everywhere this morning – and many of them were cyclists, which is always good to see. A baby was screaming in the adjacent room before we got up, which woke everyone except Tao apparently. Yet Tao did complain that Michael woke him up when quietly tiptoeing to the bathroom once during the night! Strange lad.

Breakfast was the usual fare we have come to expect at Swiss youth hostels, so perfectly adequate. Once again Tao was last to pack, but at least he admitted today that he is always last.

When we got out to the bike shed, Michael found a piece of cardboard attached to his Mercian bike with a note on it: “I may be old, but this bike is older – pension time perhaps? Stelvio”. Many comments sprang to mind. The Mercian was only 25 years old, so if that is older than the person who wrote it, they consider themselves old at 24? Clearly they assumed the bike was far older for some reason. Evidently, they recognised a quality, world-renowned frame when they saw it, which was a positive point. But the next question was, who is Stelvio? We thought it might have been the warden, so Michael marched off with the note to have it out with him. Sadly, there was a queue for reception, so he didn’t get chance to ask.

Weather started cloudy this morning as we set off along Route 2. When we got to Rheineck, just over five miles from the hostel, we found our familiar Route 2 and Route 9 signs pointing over a wooden footbridge that crossed the Alter Rhine river. The interesting thing about that was that the Alter Rhine is the boundary between Switzerland and Austria at this location, so Route 2 seemed to continue through Austria. Looking across the river we could see that cars on the other side seemed to have Austrian numberplates, so it really did look as though we would be going through another country on our journey today.

Cautiously we crossed the bridge, and sure enough we were immediately in Gassau, Austria, with no border checks or fanfares. The first things we saw were a café, that would have been great if it wasn’t so early in the day, and a Post Office, which looked totally different to the ones in Switzerland. The next thing we found was an ADEG convenience store, a chain we had never once seen in Switzerland. Just as we were thinking of going in to get some snacks, Joe realised he had left his coat and cover about 2km back along the path, so he set off to retrieve them while Tao and Michael contemplated using the café after all.

We soon hit our first problem. Austria uses a different currency to Switzerland - the Euro instead of the Swiss Franc – and we didn’t have any Euros. We confidently entered the ADEG store with our Swiss Francs and found that they would not accept them. Neither would they accept any kind of credit card except Maestro, and none of us had a Maestro card. We spent a considerable time looking around for somewhere to get some Euros, but there was nowhere.

Finally, we found another shop that only accepted Maestro cards again, but this one actually accepted Swiss Francs. And to add to our joy, they were very happy to give us change in Euros! We bought Austrian chocolate and drinks to celebrate our good fortune.

When Joe re-joined us, we continued along Route 2 which took us through coastal marshland known as the Rohrspitz nature reserve, in the middle of the Rhine delta. After a few miles we crossed back into Switzlerand, and once again there was no particularly obvious sign that we had done so.

We switched to Route 9 around here, which took us past the town of Au, so as it was lunchtime, we did a very small detour through the town and found a large and well-stocked Migros store for lunch. Outside we met an English chap, from Northamptonshire, who was now living in Switzerland. He welcomed us to the country.

We entered Altstätten through the industrial estates and were greeted with a very unusual work of modern art in the grounds of the company Sopel, which makes plastic bottles. Shaped like a tree, closer inspection revealed it was composed of twisted girders and rails, and even had a full-sized car on one of the branches. Joe declared it was his favourite sculpture ever.

We were soon riding along the cobbled main street of the town. Tao had been having problems with his wheel bearings, which seemed to have grit in them, so we looked for a bike shop and found Intersport which had a good stock of bicycle parts. Tao bought some bearings, Michael had some grease, so we headed out of the town until we found a quiet spot on the canal-side path near Sennwald. Here Tao settled down to regrease his front hub and fit the new bearings. Michael would have preferred to continue to the hostel and do the bearings there, but we didn’t really feel we were in any particular rush, and it was a nice place to stop for 45 minutes.

Continuing on along Route 9 to Frümsen we saw a sign to a cable car, and Joe had been longing to go on one ever since we arrived in Switzerland. It was only a very short detour to investigate. We found out it took people up to Staubern, a rocky mountain peak at 1860m that we had seen from the cycle route in the ridge of large mountains on our right. On arrival we found it was 25 Francs (£11) each return and only went every hour, and since it was already 17:23 we decided there just wouldn’t be time today. We promised to find Joe another cable car soon.

It was getting late now, and as we reached Werdenberg we encountered a nasty shower, just to slow us down a little more. After a garage stop for snacks, we quickly joined the cycle path at Buchs and followed it down the banks of the River Rhine itself, which here formed the border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein, a German-speaking microstate that is the fourth smallest country in Europe. Our hostel tonight was in Liechtenstein, on the other side of the river, and we had to ride several miles along the riverside path to find a crossing point to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein.

Michael had an idea the hostel was further down river, but a careful map check revealed we needed to cross here, at the wooden footbridge, to Vaduz. We crossed at 6.45 expecting to find clear signs to Schaan-Vaduz hostel, but there were no signs at all! We rode around in random directions hoping to find a sign, and eventually found our way by asking someone after a detour of four miles. We finally arrived at the hostel at 7.15, complaining to them about the lack of signs, although I’m not sure they were too concerned.

We were hungry of course by now and had been looking forward to a hot meal at the hostel, so the very last thing we wanted to hear from the warden was that we were too late to get a meal. Apparently, meals had to be ordered by 6pm and finished by 7.30. We had no choice but to go out again to a takeaway food place the warden told us about, and then bought some additional items from the Co-op at a nearby garage.

When we had eaten and showered, the hostel turned out to be quite nice, with lovely views. It even had TV and internet available for use by hostellers, although you had to pay to access the internet. Tao paid to go online so he could have a live chat with his partner back in England – he hoped she would be pleased to hear from him after he had gone to so much trouble!

Breakfast was included in the overnight price at Schaan-Vaduz Youth Hostel, and we were eager to see what was on offer when we went down to the dining room at 8.20. In addition to the usual cereals and rolls there was coconut yoghurt (rank, to use Joe’s terminology), pear halves with natural yoghurt and hot Ovaltine to drink that was actually pretty good. In fact, Ovaltine, or Ovomaltine as it is called in Switzerland, is so popular here that the mugs and the sugar dispensers were all branded with the name. Michael has always been something of a fan of Ovaltine, but out here in Switzerland even Tao and Joe were coming around to linking it too.

For some reason we were late getting out of our room today, which has never been a problem before. But today the warden came into our room at 10.05 and told us off, telling us we should have been out by 10.00. He even threatened us with a ten Franc fine if we didn’t leave right away! So that was the end of our plan to video inside the hostel. As we left hurriedly, he played “Kick-Out Music” as Tao described it – Please Don’t Go, Baby Come Back!

Tao is a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the mechanical state of his bike. He wasn’t happy with the play in the front wheel bearings that he replaced yesterday, so they had to be adjusted before we could leave. Then his headset was a bit loose so that needed adjusting too. And just when Michael thought we could actually get away, he started playing with his brakes, so they would be “just so”! Joe didn’t want to be left out, so he adjusted his brakes too. Michael had some fun videoing all this and making his usual amusing comments.

We rode at high speed back across the footbridge to Switzerland and the intersection with Route 9, then continued southwards along the banks of the Rhine to near Sargans, where we started following Route 2. Along the way we passed several rollerbladers careering along at speeds of around 14mph – evidently, it’s a popular way of getting around over here.

Our route took us away from the river and up to the quiet village of Fläsch, then through hillside vineyards to Maienfeld. This village was made famous by the Heidi stories, as this was the home of the fictional character. It was indeed delightful scenery.

It was gone 12.30 when we crossed the footbridge over the Landquart river, a bridge that we crossed in the other direction in 2002, but as it was a Sunday we had not seen a single shop open all morning. We tried getting to Chur where we were sure we would fine food, but we ran out of energy by 1.30 so we had to stop in the woods overlooking the Rhine near Zizers and eat whatever we had in our panniers. Joe had nothing at all, so Tao and Michael lent him something to keep him going. All Michael had was desserts, so he made do with a large tin of chocolate cream dessert, eaten directly from the tin. And he had a chocolate bar to finish with. Tao did best, with some pate, Babybel cheeses and a Swiss chocolate bar.

We had to detour slightly off Route 2 to go into Chur city centre, but we really did need to find good food. Unfortunately, it seems that pretty much everything closes in Switzerland on a Sunday, even in large City like Chur. We could only find one place open, a McDonlad’s in Alexander Street near the station. All the local kids seemed to be gathered around it, so we guessed they all knew there was no point being anywhere else. Well, we had been looking for good food, but in view of the circumstances we had to eat at McDonald’s. As we left we did find a kiosk outside the station that was open, so we got some more chocolate bars, then headed back to Route 2.

Our route out of Chur took us to Camp Au, near the river, and past an area that had nothing but sports facilities. There was a tennis club, multiple Beach Volleyball courts that were all in use, and a large indoor swimming facility that seemed to have plenty of customers. When we reached Felsberg we turned left to follow Cycle Route 6 as the rain set in. We would now follow Route 6 all the way to our guest house at Zillis, which sadly would involve a certain amount of climbing.

After passing through Domat golf course we entered the valley of the Hinter Rhine, another tributary of the great river. The Polish had constructed a path high up on the side of the valley that was quite rocky and treacherous in places – at least, that’s what we understood from Michael’s approximate translation of the French description in our cycle route guide book. We got some good views, and the cycling was fun – if only the weather could have been better. We stopped in the woods to consume our yoghurt drinks, and whilst Michael tried his best to show Joe how it should be drunk, he just didn’t seem to get the idea!

We followed the route across the river and up the valley, pausing to look at a famous Suspension Bridge between Thusis and Sils that was also mentioned in our guide. The climb then began into the Viamala Gorge, which took us through a couple of short tunnels before bringing us out at the visitor centre. Here, great views and steep staircases provided the opportunity to fully explore the spectacular gorge.

A little further up the gorge we finally reached Zillis, on the plateau at the top. We quickly found the Pro L’ava Guest House where we were booked, arriving around 6.10. The owner spoke no English whatsoever, as this was a remote area of Switzerland, but a local teacher helped translate.

The teacher then sat down with us and chatted with us for an hour, which proved very informative. Each Canton in Switzerland has its own rules. Zillis has its own primary and secondary schools in the same building. There are five multi-subject teachers in the school, although they do not all work full time. There are 35 children aged 15-16 (that might have possibly been 11-16 I suppose) and 30 younger children. He prefers the English to the Americans apparently, which makes a nice change.

The Romanish people live up on the hills around Zillis. Children spend the summer farming with parents or looking for jobs or holidaying with their families. The population of Switzerland is around 7 million, and currently around 20% are immigrants.

We all slept really well last night and awoke to tranquil mountain scenery right outside our window. Joe’s washed clothing had dried overnight but was now as stiff as a board. Our provided breakfast was large and very enjoyable, consisting of cereal, croissants, Swiss jams, honey, multiple types of bread, crisps, coffee, orange juice, hot chocolates and some cakes marked as “Torten Splügen”, which was probably a special kind of breakfast cake made down the road in Splügen. Three flies that were buzzing around were, sadly, too slow to avoid Michael’s flying hand-swatter.

As we were preparing to leave, we looked up into the surrounding mountains and saw the settlements there – after our conversation with the teacher last night we now knew those were occupied by Romanish people.

First stop was The Church of St Martin, just a few metres from our Guest House. This dates back to 840AD and has some of the oldest paintings on the ceiling that were created by an unknown artist in around 1160. As it’s a bit painful to be constantly looking up at the ceiling, they had kindly located a mirror that could be used to view the paintings in comfort.

Next stop was the nearby Volg supermarket, although Michael had to return to the church to recover his wallet as soon as we arrived. It made a change to find a supermarket that wasn’t either Migros or Coop, and once inside we also noticed that the prices were actually cheap for the first time in Switzerland. If we see any more small-chain supermarkets we will definitely check them out. Outside were several bikes on the bike racks, many of which had licence plates attached. We wondered if our bikes were illegal without licence plates, but when we made enquiries we found that licence plates were only required in the area until 1988.

As we left Zillis we rode past the combined Primary and Secondary school that the teacher had been telling us about last night.

A few miles down the road we reached the Spa resort of Andeer, and the first thing we found there was the mineral baths. “Relax in the gorgeous mountain setting of the Val de Schons” it said in the advertising literature. Well Joe, who loves water at any time of day or night, really wanted to go in there of course, so we made enquiries. Unfortunately, since Joe was “kinder” (a child), he wouldn’t be allowed in until 11.00, and since it was only 10.35, we sadly had to abandon the idea, as we had a long day ahead of us. We did take a look around the back to see the outdoor part of the baths, and it looked very inviting.

It was now a lovely sunny day, making the mountain scenery look superb as we climbed the Hinterrhein valley to the large Sufnersee reservoir. A short descent then brought us to Splügen for 12:50 where we planned to buy lunch, but here again we came across the usual problem in Switzerland – all the shops were closed for lunch from 12.00 to 2.00. They really don’t seem to have a clue about meeting customer’s needs in this country. We rode a kilometre or so out of the town, along Route 6, then found a perfect place to eat what food we had with us, complete with seat and perfect views. Joe made a “sandwich” from a whole loaf!

Route 6 continued along the River Hinterrhein to the village of Hinterrhein, but once we had taken a look in the village, the real work began with the climb to the San Bernardino Pass. We got a very good view of the multiple hairpins on the 400m climb ahead from Grossmata, and we could also see a lot of work going on at the entrance to the San Bernardino Tunnel – improvements we assumed.

It got much colder as we climbed to the top, and it was around 15:45 when we finally arrived. WE wanted a warm café, and there was a warm café of sorts, a very old restaurant that felt more like a cramped bar than a café. But it served its purpose, and we were glad to go inside for hot drinks and snacks. Tao emptied a large amount of sugar into his coffee when he thought the camera wasn’t on him, but Michael caught him in the act.

After a short ride along the top we reached the start of the very long downhill, at La Smita. It was actually freezing despite our fleeces, coats and gloves. Joe pulled his hoods around his face until he looked like an Eskimo, Michael was just shivering and wanting to get on, but Tao, being Tao, thought it would be amusing to choose this moment to take video shots of the snow on the surrounding mountains! We had done just 25 miles, with 34 to go, and it was 4.15, so Tao was soon persuaded to get a move on.

What followed was 1800m of vertical descent, with many hairpin bends. And yes, it was fun, especially as conditions began to warm up. At San Bernadino we stopped at a garage and the Denner supermarket for food and snacks, noticing that now everyone was speaking Italian – we had arrived in the Italian part of Switzerland for the first time. Everything here looked and felt very different to other parts of the country. We then continued our descent through more hairpins, taking video shots along the way, until we finally reached the lowlands at Roveredo at about 6.30. This was just 292m above sea level, so now it was much warmer, and the sun was still shining.

The descent continued more gently to Bellinzona itself. We were delayed a little when Tao missed a turn, so it was 7.45 when we finally arrived at the Hostel. The building was huge and felt more like an old hospital building inside. It was actually quite hard to find the reception, and when we did there was nobody there! We had to go to a phone booth in the reception area and ring a designated number. Apparently, the warden was having a party, but came down when we called.

We had a meal provided which turned out to be pretty good, and there was also an internet room to use during the evening. We used the facilities to wash some more of our clothes as we were now past halfway through the tour.

Belinzona Youth Hostel was originally built as a private boarding school for girls, run by the Sisters of Menzingen, but it was converted to a hostel in 2002. It certainly felt different to every other hostel we had stayed at, with long corridors, lifts, and a very Italian feel to the rooms. The provided breakfast was excellent, although not especially different to many other hostel breakfasts.

There were loads of families staying the night, so there were kids everywhere. One woman packed five under-eights in her car as she was leaving. It all made for a very happy and youthful atmosphere, so we enjoyed our stay.

Michael had a bit of a toothache coming on this morning, and he knew from experience that he would need antibiotics to put a stop to it before the pain became unbearable. He asked at reception where he would be able to get the medication, but they advised it would be harder than usual today, because today was a “special holiday”. We asked the reason for the holiday, we were told it was Assumption Day, whatever that was. Seems like there are no shortage of reasons to take time off work in Switzerland.

The advice was to try Bellinzona Hospital first, which was only half a mile from the hostel. We got there around 10.25, and 25 minutes later Michael came out with the news that there would be a 2-hour wait if we got the prescription from there, so they advised going to the only Pharmacy open today – another mile away – and getting Michael’s dentist to fax them a copy of the prescription. We finally got all that done by 12.00, but the prescription cost Michael 60 Swiss Francs, not the 16 he thought they had quoted, so that was over £30. It was a useful reminder that we are very fortunate in the UK to have the NHS.

Finally we started our journey, but at least the weather was perfect today. After riding through Old Bellinzona, where we saw the Collegiata, Bellinzona’s Catholic Church dating back to 1465, we continued along Route 3, which we would be following all day. The route was flat, and we had a slight tailwind so we made good speed. By 12.35 temperatures were rising rapidly so we were grateful to find a water fountain at Preonzo under the cool shade of a large tree.

We stopped at a garage to get some food, since we didn’t expect any ordinary shops to be open today, then after riding through Giornico we stopped for lunch by the side of the quiet road.

Pressing on again we rode under an enormous pair of bridges that had been constructed to carry the E35 road out of the mountain tunnel. At the same point, the railway line went into a huge circular tunnel in the mountains that allowed it to climb, then came out much higher. Our own road also had two hairpin bends to get us up the climb, so all in all it was a bit like Spaghetti Junction, and an example of the impressive road and rail engineering for which the Swiss are famous.

It was now very hot, so we were all looking for shade and Joe was looking for a water where he could have a swim. We didn’t find the water, but we did find shade, at Faido, where there was a shady park and playground near the Pianselva Cable Car. Michael was so hot he just flopped down under a shady tree to cool off, much to Tao’s amusement. Joe couldn’t swim, but he was able to do the next best thing and dip his head in the water trough, which Tao caught on camera. While we were there, Gavin sent us an international text to see how we were getting on. He had really wanted to come on the tour with us but had to cancel at the last minute.

The final part of our journey took us past the Rodi-Fiesso reservoir (open water, but Joe wasn’t allowed to swim there of course), an attractive lake park at Ambro called Audan Lakes where many locals were fishing and relaxing, and the Ritom Funicular Railway at Quinto which we could see on the other side of the river from Piotta. We arrived at Airolo, our destination, before 6pm.

The hostel was buried deep in the town and was not that easy to find. It was OK, but once again there was no food available. The warden recommended us to go to Borelli’s Pizza Restaurant, which he assured us was the finest pizza restaurant in town. The pizzas did turn out to be excellent despite looking like toasted stingrays, but as we had to wait half an hour for them to arrive we gave them a poor score for service.

Back at the hostel we checked the weather forecast for tomorrow, and it sounded really bad. Since tomorrow was going to be a hard cycling day with a lot of climbing, we made plans to use the train.