Chiggiona to Airolo 20kms uphill cycling, then Airolo - Goschonen - Andermatt - Disentis 65kms on the train.
Good morning Swiss Alps.
Today we woke up and procrastinated, lots and lots. It was a cold night, but the morning was beautiful. Will got the little stove out and made us some hot drinks, and some porridge, and we ginned around enjoying watching the skinks fight and scurry around. Will was reading some of the posts on his CrazyGuy blog, and one from Fredy in Switzerland, told us that the Gotthardo Pass was closed until 22nd May due to too much snow on the road. What? Fredy has offered us a couple of alternative options, so now we need to reassess our situation .
Check this guy out. We're vampiring power, and he's absorbing it. Cheeky bugger!
Long story short, we still need to get to Airolo, and then we will check on trains and other options. We finally pushed off at 11am, in 3rd gear continuing the climb from yesterday. Just enough of a warm up before we got to some tough, long inclines, that just kept going and going. Lots of breather stops, and lots of water, as it is actually pretty bloody hot in the sun.
Ugh, I'm spitting on myself again, and it's not even lunch time.
Another busy road I'm glad we're not on, also good excuse to stop and breath.
Lots of cows just chillin in the sun, so cute.
Look, it's the original Gnomes Ville.
After about 12kms, it had flattened out a little, and we were already at 950mtrs, which was a surprise, I thought we had a lot more to go, but only about 150mtrs in 6kms. So we stopped for lunch, and must have picked the worst place. One choice, Spaghetti Pesto (literally just that, nothing else), two beers for Will and a coke for me, and 28€! Ripped and jipped again.
Seriously, where's the frickin meat? Protein, we need protein!
Too scared to ask the old lady to fill our water bottles in case she charged us, we found a fountain and did it. Drinking heaps of water, and today we even tried one of those special sports electrolyte powders, in preparation for the work. Tasted nice.
God it's hard when you can see it, but it's still ages away.
So we got to Airolo about 2ish, asked some men where the train station was and rolled down there to investigate our options. The lovely lady in the information centre told us about the pass being closed, and trains were our only option. So we organised to go all the way to Disentis, on the Swiss cycle route 2, and miss out on the two passes. I feel a little disappointed, but Mother Nature must think we are not ready (she's probably right).
Helicopters moving things around. We just use cranes. Weird, just weird .
Ok, so we leave from platform 3, in the middle, luckily there are ramps on the stairs to go through the underpass, at 14:59. When we get to Goschenen, at 15:08, we need to get from platform 2 to platform 11, by 15:12. Shit, that isn't much time. Our first train is 3 minutes late, now we've got one whole minute to transfer...huh! That section was completely in the tunnel, so no views. We arrive, oh and did I mention that the floor of the train coach was about a metre above the platform ? We had to hoik the loaded bikes in and out again, panicking the train was going to head off while in that process. But it didn't . We had to race down another underpass and up to platform 11, I was going as fast as I could, but Will took off. I didn't need to panick, the train conductor from our first leg was holding the train for us. Phew! This leg, was a ten minute trip, with a 5minute change over, with no indication of platforms. Oh god! Some views on this bit, but difficult to take photos while holding the bikes. We got to Andermatt, and the train driver we'd just had, got off and took us to the next train, helped us lift the bikes on, then left us in the hands of the new conductor. It could of been a huge disaster , but everyone was super helpful, and patient.
Hey, they had ramps, bit easier than the stairs, just!
Our ride up the Oberal Pass was amazing! I think we took fifty thousand photos, and said Wow and Oh My God, twice as many times. Once through the pass, we started to head back down, and suddenly we stopped! Just stopped dead in the middle of know where. Train driver was out, conductor guy running up and down the train, uh oh! We sat there for about twenty minutes, contemplating chucking the bikes down to the road and heading off, it was downhill from here anyway. But we soon started down again, with the smell of overheating brakes. Hope they hang in there. Will was trying out the crash brace position just to be prepared. All was good, and we made it safely to Disentis.
Leaving Andermatt. Amazing views towards the Oberalp Pass.
Looking back towards the Gotthardo Pass as it gets close to Andermatt.
Feeling quite exhausted after our day, we managed to find ourselves a hostel, and some dinner, and no bloody Wifi. Everyone here is now speaking German, and I know none of it. So far in this town, no one speaks English. I can't read German either, so dinner was a lucky dip. I am officially over cheese, and may never eat it again!
Made it here and they fixed the break issue. Notice the name? Die-ni? What?
We are now going to follow the number two route, which follows the Rhein and heads around the Eastern side of Switzerland. We will also try to stop in and stay with Fredy in Winterthur, seeing as he invited us. A change of route, but we still need to push out the kays, as we are getting through our 90 days in Europe. So another eventful day, and besides Switzerland being super expensive , it really is a visual wonderland.
Some more scenery pics.
Love seeing the pics of the snow. Jen, this was another great read. What brilliant stories you will have to tell (except when you get home noone is interested, believe me!!) We did quite a few passes in the US (by car though for Gods sake!) and they are visually stunning! Safe travels xx
ReplyDelete