Time for a break....: Day 17 – 24/04/13

Zurich – Sarnen

105.1km, 8hrs 11mins, 1638m total climb

Woke up normal time and then moved all the stuff into the sun and had breakfast and had showers etc. but must have taken longer than normal as we left the site at about 9.30. Headed into Zurich as we needed a new mattress as mine had decided to leak in Heiterwang. Think it always did it. We shared the hard floor a couple times each but this was enough!

We detoured off the route and got a new one in Zurich for a very reasonable price (surprising) and then doubled back into the city to have a look. What a clean and tidy place. Almost too clean, every old building has been steam cleaned back to gleaming stone, the overall effect to us was a bit too much it might look better with some wrinkles to show its history but still very nice.

Whilst admiring the vista, we realised that we had just clicked over the first 1000km mark whilst rolling down into Zurich! :)

We followed the lake out of Zurich and had a day following various cycle paths between the lakes which were quite full of other sport cyclists. A lot were over 60, it was a weekday, and looked very fit – what a hobby ;) We enjoyed the polite greetings of 'Gruetzi mitenand' (Hello you two) all day.

We followed the route through the beautiful city of Luzern which reminded us of cycling in London again as it was very busy and you need to be careful to be in the right lane all the time in moving traffic. Watch out for the electric buses which have have overall priority and don't take any prisoners, even old ladies on bikes get shoved out of the way!

The route was fast and as we got nearer to Sarnen we followed the old road as a new motorway was carrying all the main traffic and it was a cyclists paradise, slightly downhill and alongside the lake, into the sun. We got overtaken only by a few sport cyclists, who seem to overtake at great speed then sit 20m ahead for kilometres.

I was checking the GPS as the route split at a certain point and I wasn’t sure of the sliproad-looking bit ahead when first Johanna then another voice called for me to stop! I was leading us up a motorway! Should spend less time looking at the screen and more at the signs sometimes. To be fair the GPS was right, just needed to zoom in a bit more.

The guy that shouted us was a very cool Swiss guy who was cycling in the same direction and led us into Sarnen, his home village was 5km back. He was impressed with our speed on the bikes and how far we had already come, spoke no English but had been on a tour of Scotland already. We three cruised the last 15km together, chatting away as best we could and did OK. Johanna was impressed when the guy (didn't get his name) thought I was Dutch. My German must be getting better :) He followed us right to the camp-site explaining that the area had been flooded a few years ago and the whole camping and new sports arena had been created afresh after the damage. Certainly all looked brand new and modern.

The weather was going to be perfect tomorrow, and we decided to stay for a couple of days. The whole place is brand new. The only negative is they haven’t opened the free swimming pool up yet, so we are missing out on that until maybe the morning when we leave when we might get a quick dip. Free WiFi, huge brand new facilities, soft grass, pitch near the lake. Marvellous.

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1268587