From Lake Bodensee to Splugen village

Statue in Konstanz harbour

Phil in his waterproofs

After schaffhausen the Rhein cycle path continues to Konstanz at the western end of Lake Bodensee. From here we decided to take a ferry over to the northern shore to the town of Meersburg. The weather was unstable on leaving Meersburg so we cycled for a couple of hours in our waterproofs. In addition to the weather, the cycling wasn't so good here either as it was on a fairly busy road that didn't follow the contours of the lake.

Lindau harbour

The snow(!) covered Alps

When we reached Friedrichshafen we decided to cut our loses and take the ferry the rest of the way to the eastern shore of Bodensee to Lindau. The early evening sun cast a lovely light on the harbour as we came in on the ferry. In addition, much to our dismay, we could see the size of the Alps in the distance and that the rain had fallen as snow on the peaks. We had left our winter spike tyres at home and so trusted that the weather would be better and the snow melted by the time we would cross thr Alps. Lindau was the only place so far that we struggled to find any accomodation. We eventually got a room and found out that a conference in town had accounted for the lack of free rooms. Lindau was also popular for tourists as it is a lovely old city. We were keeping a close eye on the weather forcaste to try and make sure that we would cycle over the Alps in good weather.

Fantastic alpine views from the cycle path

The forecast for the next three days was fine but after that it was supposed to rain for a few days. To avoid cycling the Splügen pass in the fog and rain we needed to save a day. Therefore we cycled from Lindau and briefly through Breganz in Austria and up to St. Margarethen in Switzerland where we took the train for an hour up to Sargens. The train saved us about a days cycling and would hopefully mean that our trip over the Splügen Pass would be in fine weather. By now the scenery had become very "Heidi like" as this was in fact the area that the Heidi books were based around.

Shortly after leaving the train station we found ourselves cycling in what most people imagine cycling in Switzerland to be like. It doesn't really get much better than this. A dedicated cycle path along the Rhein slowly climbing up with the choclate box alpine mountain scenery all around. Phil was cycling with a big smile on his face for the rest of the day.

An alpine vineyard on the way to Chur

iPhone powered cycling

The cycling was now all up hill but using the easiest gears on the bike meant that we could manage all the hills albeit at a slow speed of about 5kpm at the steepest parts. We had a good nights sleep at Chur before the next days ride up to the start of the road up to the pass in the village of Splügen. It was pretty hard going and hot at times on the road up to Splügen village.  One long never ending hill towards the end of the day required a new tactic to help us up. We used our iPhones with headsets and music to give us that extra "umph".

Well kept old wooden houses in Splugen village

Leaving the Rhein at Splugen

We ate a good dinner and breafast in Splügen to prepare us for the last day of climbing up to the Splügen pass before the reward of cruising downhill for hours into Italy.