Day 17, 13 6 2014 Brienz to Zug
A few days ago I downloaded the Mcdonalds application into my iphone. Tragic but true. The reason is that I love my coffee and to my Australian palate the McCafe coffee is at least as good as anything I generally find in Europe.
Unfortunately, and also tragic, I am completely unable to use the application, as it relies on Google maps, which requires a download, which I will not do as my telco, Telstra in Australia, charges ridiculous prices for foreign data downloads.
We left Brienz today and started climbing within a few kilometers, which continued on to a 600m vertical climb at around 8% average up to the Brunig Pass. We got away early, just after 8.00 which meant missing breakfast, but today was supposed to be hot so we thought it wise. Our intention was to stop at a bakery and get something, but we didn’t see what we wanted. So we got up the pass OK, but for a ride like this it is probably wise to be careful and not too blasé about your eating.
The rest of the day was comparatively easy. We had the long downhill from the pass and the rest of the ride was around the lakes. There were plenty of ups and downs as usual, but nothing very hard.
The lake scenery, and particularly the view from the pass down were, again spectacular.
We spent a bit of time in the beautiful old city of Luzerne, before continuing on to Zug.
We followed a mix of bike routes and secondary roads, which worked well on the day, and pulled into Zug about 5.00, where we got the tourist information lady to find a hotel for us.
We have been heading generally north-east towards the Austrian border, following the lakes as much as possible, as shown here. There is no defined route we could take, and we are avoiding the high passes as much as possible, and doing a bit of extra distance instead. The weather remains hot, and just pedaling up the relatively small hills is quite enough later in the day.
92Km on a long day.
Roz says: Man rider has admitted finally that on mountainous days the GPS under records distance. I think ride designers give profiles using Google because my speedo agrees with road signs but not with the GPS. Up to 10km on those very steep days, feeling ripped off!! Meanwhile Switzerland is sheer bliss.
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