Day 15, 11 6 2014, Fribourg to Interlaken

Today was by far the easiest day’s riding in Switzerland.  We avoided crossing a high steep pass, as the map shows, by going to Bern, which we wanted to see anyway.  While there were plenty of hills, they were not steep and we made better progress.  We stayed on the secondary roads which worked fine.  The traffic was easy and much of the time there was a bike lane.

We climbed up out of the steep river valley at Fribourg and the language changed. We just arrived at a little village and all the signage was in German.  I was very surprised at how sudden the change was, and how little signage was in French.  Similarly there is virtually no German signage in the French-speaking towns, except for the one saying that you could kill yourself if you hang onto the train overhead wires.

We rode into Bern, and spent an hour there in the centre of the city, which seemed strangely deserted.  Like Fribourg it is set on a deep gorge with an old town at the river level and the new town at the top. It defines the city.

We checked out the bears in their enclosure next to the old bear pit where they used to live until relatively recently.  The name “Bern” derives from bear.

The striking thing in this area is how you turn a corner and the Alps are just there, towering over everything.

The city of Thun is at the western end of the Thunersee, and we had a pleasant ride around the north shore.  The water is milky green due to the glacier runoff, from the mountains we could see beyond the lake.  It is all quite spectacular, but does not have the large-scale tourist attraction of Lake Geneva, and is no worse because of it.

It is difficult not to get blaise about this scenery. More and more of it just unfolds, and each bit is just as spectacular but different from the previous bit.

We got reasonable accommodation in Interlaken after the tourist information lady had cheerily informed us that the town was full and the cheapest accommodation left was over A$400 per night.  After some discussion she found a place at A$200. Dinner was at a supermarket cafeteria, and quite satisfactory.

 85Km for the day.

 

Roz says: Always good if the order of viewing places is from the least amazing to the absolute best and OMG they just keep on getting better!!  Heard today that there is still SNOW on the trail we planned for crossing the alps, whoops, had thought train to the top and cruise down the other side would be awesome but NO not this month!!!

 


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