Friday July 11th - Cool to Very Warm and sunny all day - again, 18°C to 27ºC
Good bye Zum Alten Schweizer
Coffee on lake looking to Twann
Twann, our village last night
Big hills and more to come
Hill overlooking Lake Biel
Will I be on a post card?
Small bike size bridges to cross
Back onto the River Aare
More hills
I could cycle forever here
More bike size bridges
Lunch stop on Rver Aare
The hills are getting steeper
But worth the climb for the view
A bit warmer today, need a coldie
On the road to Bern
Bern, Switzerland
Luca and Seraina
A short but beautiful sunny day cycling 66k from Twann on Lake Biel into Bern. 20k around Lake Biel followed by 40k on country roads towards Bern, then 6k of forests and the streets of Bern to Luca's House just 1.5k from the centre of Bern. Today is almost the end of our journey. Next week is a mixture of trains and walking and Tour de France.
Our day begins with the worst breakfast we have had all trip. Such a pity because the Hotel Zum alten Schweizer was so nice and quiet. The tea was luke warm and there was only one paper thin slice of meat and a tiny slither of cheese with two bread rolls each - no meusli. I'm already hungry when we cycle out of the beautuful picturesque village by Lake Biel. It's 20k around the lake on mostly bike tracks to the opposite side where we need to turn back onto Route 8 and into Bern. We stop for a coffee overlooking the lake towards Twann, the village where we stayed last night. It's such a beautiful but cool day, we're looking for a seat in the sun. We're both starving after a miniscule breakfast, and drag out the last of our nuts.
Turning inland away from the Lake we cross through very hilly farm land. Every farm has it's cows - sometimes just two or three as though it's the tradition. There's 4 high hills to climb before we get back onto the Aare River again and some of them are very steep - I'm walking and pushing the bike. Not easy with a heavy load. But the views from the tops of the hills are worth the climb on this magnificent day.
Once we're back onto the Aare, the cycle route is a mixture of small roads, gravel paths and more hills. We find a picnic spot near one of the hydroelectric stations on the river and eat every piece of food we own - we're still starving after a nothing breakfast. We leave full. Big mistake - there's three huge hills yet to climb and I just broke my first two Golden Rules of cycling - the first is don't have lunch before you have to cycle or walk up hill, and the second is don't walk or cycle uphill after lunch. I'm already walking as soon as I see the hills coming. There's no blood left in the legs - it's all around the belly after lunch.
It's warming up, and at the top of one of these hills, one of the local farmers has emersed dozens of drinks - water and apple ciders - in a trough with icy cold water from the mountains running through it. Worth every bit of 4 Swiss Francs - the Swiss don't use Euro. More pretty country side and then soon we see the tall apartment buildings of Bern looming in the distance. Getting close.
There's a large forested area on the top side of Bern which is uphill for about 4k. After stopping for a quick cup of tea in the cool of the forest, we head on into the busy traffic to the train station to see if we can buy tickets for our train trip into Grenoble - after finding out that there's construction work on the train line between Grenoble and Chambery, we need to go via Lyon - a 3hr detour. But it's Friday afternoon, a bit busy at the station and the ticket office is not easy to find so we decide to leave it til Saturday to sort out.
We've already marked Luca's address into Ian's GPS and it's easy to find. We arrive at 5pm, a bit early, so cycle back to the nearest cafe for a quiet beer before going back to the apartment block. Seraina arrives and it's greetings all round - Luca is still at work at Bern Hospital where he's a doctor. Seraina's English is perfect as she spen a year in America as an exchange student the same year Luca stayed with us. They have a really nice apartment on the 4th floor and we're soon in and showered. Luca arrives home and after hugs all round and a chat, we walk about 2k across town to an Al Fresco restaurant called Marzilibruecke where we order spare ribs, lamb and Thai chicken with a few beers and a wine. It was such a lovely night catching up. We was our exchange student in 2000/01 and we hadn't seen him for 10 years since our visit in 2002.
We walk home via the old Parliament house on the hill overlooking Bern and home to such a quiet comfy apartment
Luca, Seraina and us at Restaurant Marzilibruecke Bern
Countryside Switzerland