Day 1: Andermatt to Vaduz

A long day with a lot of gruesome uphills but some absolutely stunning views and a lot of descent.

Last night, dinner at the Radisson Blu Andermatt was pretty underwhelming. Poor pasta, terrible soup.  Not a good start. In the morning Andermatt looked its usual charmless self. The town was never one of the traditional ski villages so it’s now just a mess of ugly apartment buildings and soulless windswept squares. We’ve been here in the winter and, unlike other alpine villages, it doesn’t get better with a covering of snow.

The Radisson Blu did rather redeem itself with a superb breakfast buffet but apart from that, I wouldn’t consider it a “destination hotel”.

Getting to the Oberalppass from Andermatt on a bike involves climbing 600m on a twisty and busy road at gradients of 12%. Or you can take the Matterhorn Gotthard Railway to the source of the Rhine for 8 CHF and 4 CHF for your bike. Let’s face it, that’s the easiest decision of the day.

On the train ride up we were surrounded by walnutty folks in their later years all wearing almost identical “sensible” hiking gear, all carrying walking poles and all twinkling with excitement about wandering around in the alps. It felt very Swiss.

When we got to Oberalppass after 20 minutes of riding the train (as opposed to 1.5 hours of miserable grinding up a steep alpine pass on a bike) we were greeted by the Stiftung Leuchtturm Rheinquelle, a lighthouse sitting at over 2,000m above sea level and a hell of a long way from the sea.

It’s a lighthouse at the source of the Rhine!

It’s a little unclear what’s going on here however, quoting from the website (auto translated from German) we get this:

The only lighthouse in the Alps stands at the source of the Rhine at 2,046 meters in the middle of the Swiss mountains. But what is it doing there? It was originally conceived as a tourist attraction, along with a real ship. The ship hasn't arrived yet. So the lighthouse stands there, waiting. One day, a ship will come, from Rotterdam.

The lighthouse also comes from Rotterdam. The original is in the Maritime Museum. It once stood in Hoek van Holland at the mouth of the Rhine. The lighthouse on the Oberalp Pass stands at the source of the Rhine.

The ship would be just as out of place as the lighthouse. It simply doesn't fit on the Oberalp Pass. It's too big, serves no purpose, and isn't attractive. The lighthouse is already there. The ship will come. Absurd? We live in absurd times.

We do indeed live in absurd times and this prose is exhibit one.

Looking happy at the source of the Rhine. This would not last.

The descent down from Oberalppass was steep, twisty and bitterly cold.

Downhill is all very nice but not at sub-zero temperatures.

Of course having to pack light and planning for August meant we had little or no warm clothes to deal with the descent. At one point I thought my hands would shiver themselves off the handlebars.

Eventually the arid high mountain scenery opened out into something that had a little bit more of a “you’re in Switzerland guys” look.

🎵The hills are alive…🎵

Yes yes yes, I know the Sound of Music is set in Austria…

We saw our first Eurovelo 15 sign and we were off.

The route is exceptionally well signed.

But more important than the Eurovelo 15 sign was our first sight of the mighty Rhine.

That little stream down there is going to get a lot bigger soon.

Of course it wouldn’t be a Eurovelo route without a little bit of pointless fannying around and, on cue, we were directed onto a gravelly forestry path.

At least it was downhill gravel.

The road twisted down, crossed the Rhine a few times. It got warmer thank god and we started to make some pretty good time. There was even time to snap the traditional picture of an amusingly named road and some Swiss cows.

You take your amusement where you find it.

Mmmm, toblerone.

By this point we were cycling into the Ruinalta. This is known as the “Swiss Grand Canyon” and it is quite impressive although small potatoes relative to the real Grand Canyon. I recommend reading about the Flims Landslide which created the gorge. Largest landslide ever in the Alps and it happened about 10,000 years ago.

The road next to the gorge does have a lot of ups and downs as the road twists up and around the various bluffs. Although this was beautiful, it was hard work.

Impressive bridges

And impressive tunnels

Your author, over the Rhine

The Rhine Gorge was unexpected and quite beautiful. It made up for the sub-zero descent, the illness that Dr T was suffering, the brutal climbs through the spurs around the gorge. Highly recommended although definitely only highly recommended in the direction that we did it. The other way would be…challenging.

As the landscape flattened, we stopped for a coffee in Chur and unexpectedly the owner of the coffee bar was from the UK. He seemed impressed that we were heading back to the UK on bikes. He should have been, it was going to be long long long way.

Once we got down to the Rhine level, the landscape opened out and we were directed onto the dykes which run along the Rhine.

Dykes, river, mountains.

This section was very reminiscent of the dykes along the side of the Danube although, compared to them, this very much was Swiss style cycling. Buttery smooth tarmac and the occasional high quality cow to look at.

For some reason along the Rhine, the Swiss grow maize. I spent a long time trying to work out why this might be. Here’s a country which is outstandingly productive and has a real premium on flat land given that it’s the second most mountainous country in Europe (10 points if you know the most mountainous country in Europe). Why would you grow one of the most commoditised agricultural products on land which could be used to build a watch factory or some high end engineering company? Rather like the presence of the cows, it makes no sense to me. Put your maize production in Romania, put your cows in Ireland for god’s sake.

Economically irrational maize but some great cycling infrastructure.

The last 30k were a bit of a grind but with great cycling infrastructure: the Eurovelo dudes had done a great job. It bode well for the rest of the trip.

Blasting along the Rhine on the aforementioned buttery smooth tarmac and traffic free paths soon led us to Lichtenstein. One of the world’s two doubly landlocked countries — an extra 10 blog points if you know the other one without looking it up on Google.

Rather sadly, the capital of Lichtenstein makes Andermatt look like a cute Alpine village. It’s a soulless concrete dump but very rich though. Maybe the two things go together? Apart from the double landlocked thing, the only other great fact about Lichtenstein is that it is the only army to have sent troops to war and after the war to have more troops return.

During the First World War, Lichtenstein sent 17 soldiers to fight with the Germans. After the war, 18 returned. They had made a friend.

The Prince is a bit of an autocratic nutter but is in the phone book. Under P.

The autocratic nutter lives up there.

This house may or may not be here.

Alpine charm

We ate cheap Italian food in a soulless concrete square which was better than it sounded.

In a change from previous blogs, I now have the opportunity to add a guest blog post. Dr T is pretty tired this evening but here’s the guest post:

I have lived these epic cycles vicariously for several years and now I am doing one in the real world - which turns out not to be the same thing at all! Today was challenging - the Rhine does indeed flow downhill but the route has to pass through the Grand Canyon of Switzerland so a lot of epic scenery and climbing - somewhat unexpected and not entirely welcome. For those who know the Ski area we passed Laax, Flims and the lovely Foppa - happy memories.

I will post more on the numerous outfits crammed into a tiny cycle bag but for now I must say I have no idea how Ewan does it - ‘chapeau’ as cycle people say which as a saying is somewhat ludicrous being truncated to the point of incomprehension…

On to more prosaic matters - it turns out the whole hotel upgrade has its downside which is centrally regulated temperature and therefore NO towel rails.

Tomorrow is another day. Less climbing, same distance, weather will be worse. But it is doable.

The stats:

• Distance; 124km. Not huge but a big day
• Climbing: 606m of ascent which doesn’t sound much but they were steep hills.
• Average speed: 21kmh. Blame the climbs and the gravel.
• Contact points: both sets seem to be holding up but it is just day one.

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