We had an acceptable night at Brugg youth hostel once we found comfortable positions in the sheet sleeping bags and got used to the constant dripping sound from the water butt in the courtyard outside. We had a provided breakfast this morning, and whilst it was nothing special, it was again OK. Before we left Joe fitted his new £15 speedo to his bike as the town clock struck ten, and then we were off on a hot, sunny morning.

We were following National Cycle Route 5 all the way to Zurich, so all we had to do was watch out for the signs that were visible if you kept your eyes open. At Dättwil, near Baden, we noticed a BMX track underneath a flyover so stopped there for a few minutes while Tao and Joe rode everything a couple of times, just because it was there. We agreed it was a very good way to use space that would otherwise be wasted.

Riding through Baden we saw numerous cranes in operation, as we noticed on our previous tour to the country, passed an HEP station and then a comprehensive Sports Centre where children were jumping and diving confidently off the lower diving boards. A double-decker train crossed Route 5 right in front of us at Kempfhof, and then our cycle route took us through a delightful farming village called Oetlikon – Michael filmed our journey through. At the far end of this section, near Lake Katzen, we came across an enormous field of sunflowers, and Joe couldn’t resist pulling a face on one of them to compete with others that had been similarly crafted.

Route 5 took us right into Zurich, but somewhere along the way we missed a sign and ended up riding past Flussbad Public Swimming Faciliy, a safe swimming area in a kind of canal that splits off from the river. There was a changing area and a diving board, and even a lifeguard waiting at the lower end in case anyone got into difficulty, although we didn’t think she looked too capable if anything were to go wrong. Joe, being an original Water Baby, just had to get in the water. First he went down the steps, but once out in the middle of the channel he found the current so fast flowing that he couldn’t swim back to the steps, so we waved as he was carried down to the grill near the Lifeguaard. Meanwhile some local children showed us how to really enjoy the water by jumping off the much higher bridge that crossed the facility – they really were fearless. Not to be outdone, Joe plucked up courage and jumped off the diving board, once again being swept down to the grill. But of course a few seconds later one of the local lads again showed us how it should be done by doing a proper high-flying dive off the board.

Picking up Route 5 again we followed the river all the way to the centre of town, next to Lake Zurich. We found a Migros Take Away nearby that had a kind of restaurant in it, so we were able to buy lunch there that turned out to be exceptional. Michael had wanted us to go on a boat trip this evening, but neither Tao nor Joe fancied that for some reason, so we planned to look around the town and museum and then walk around the lake this evening.

After Migros we came across the Victorinox Flagship store, selling every variety of Swiss Army Knife you could imagine. They had the world’s largest on display as well, for 849 Swiss Francs, but we really couldn’t imagine how such a large tool could be useful. We guessed it was quite clever though. When we got to the Swiss National Museum at 5.10pm it was sadly closed, so all we could do was look at some groupies setting up some kind of concert outside.

The hostel was a little way from Zurich centre, and someone had told us we could get to it easily by going to the station and following Tram number 7, which would go right past the door. Well we found the station, saw Tram 7 and chased after it, but it soon got away from us. At least we were headed in the right direction. It seemed like a very long way, but eventually we found the hostel, a very large modern building clearly designed to cope with large numbers of guests. It was so large that it had a lift, and the evening meal was adequate for 16 Swiss Francs.

Showered and fed, we set out for evening ride around the lake at around 8pm, which turned out to be nine miles there and back. We soon found the western edge of the lake, got our bearings for returning again later and followed the lakeside path around to the eastern side. There was a lovely atmosphere everywhere, with live music and people enjoying the evening in various ways. We all commented on how safe it felt here, unlike similar large cities in other countries. We were supposed to push our bikes along the path, but both Tao and Joe thought it would be fine to cycle slowly, so we all did.

At Zurichhorn we came across the Ball Fountain, and interesting water sculpture where the large sphere could be rotated in any direction as it floated on the bed of water. Just around the corner from there we came across our second open-air cinema of the tour, but this time it was evening and a large audience were entering ready for the evening’s film presentation. We didn’t see much point in paying to go in, as the film would probably have a German soundtrack, but we found a position just next to the screen, by the lake, where we could see everything. We had to wait 20 minutes for darkness to fall, then the screen was raised up and the advertisements started. We all thought it was a great idea, and if they had been showing a film in English we would have loved to go in and soak up the experience.

On our way back to the hostel we encountered more memorable scenes, with tasteful live music and singing by the waterside. Zurich is indeed a unique city.

Back at the hostel, to make sure we had everything for our breakfast tomorrow we asked the warden for some milk to put in the fridge. Unfortunately the warden wouldn’t sell us any, instead giving us directions to a BP garage that was supposedly only five minutes away. Well it was a lot more than that, being right down by the lake and half a mile in each direction – we needed rambling socks for that little journey!

We were sharing our room with a guest from Pakistan who was quite interesting.

Zurich youth hostel claims to be “one of the most modern in the world, open round the clock so you can really get to know Zurich, the little city on a global scale. The hostel has a roomy entrance hall and a spacious inner courtyard for the international globe-trotting community to meet for good cuisine and comfortable rooms in a quiet city location close to the lake”.

It went on: “Chat about your last Asian or American trip in the big entrance hall, exchange information and trips on the leisure activities on offer in Zurich, pick up the latest international news headlines on the big-screen TV while eating a snack or play a game of billiards - all of this at any time, around the clock, 365 days a year.”

After reading all that we expected great things as we went down for our provided breakfast, and to our surprise we were not disappointed. A girl from Turkey sat with us over breakfast and talked at length about our respective travels – all very interesting. As we left the dining room she was even telling us of her travels to America and Asia, just like the hostel brochure had told us she would!

When Tao had taken some video shots around the hostel we rode the two miles back into Zurich and went on a bit of a shopping spree in the Old Zurich area. This included walking up one of the towers of Zurich Cathedral, which gave us superb views all around the city. Soon after 12, however, we thought we had better get a move on.

We made our way out of the city more successfully than we had found our way in, eventually re-joining Cycle Route 5 not far from where we had left it. Joe was listening to his Sony Walkman while cycling out of the city, and because he couldn’t hear properly he nearly had an accident. He learned his lesson from that.

Somewhere along the cycle route we saw a strange sign that warned us about “Danger of Death”. We weren’t quite sure from where the danger emanated, but we managed to avoid death one way or another. We missed one of the cycle route signs and rode for more than twenty minutes before realising the signs had stopped, so we had to do some backtracking to get on the correct route.

A little further along the path was blocked by workmen digging up the road, and after wondering for a while which way to go we noticed some small orange signs that said simply “dev”, which apparently marked our temporary diversion route.

We got to Basserdorf, around 17 miles into the ride, by around 2.15, so detoured into the town to the Migros supermarket where we bought lunch. A storm came along while we were in there, so we ate our food under the shelter of the nearby bike stands.

Pressing on through Lindau and Wintersberg we came across a large field near a remote car park near Winterthur where crews were erecting stages, marquess and audio equipment for some kind of concert. It all looked very impressive, but we couldn’t see any signs about who would be playing.

There followed a long drag through forest tracks that wasn’t particularly inspiring. At Kolbrunn we came across some strange planks that had been laid across the river Töss in a kind of pedestrian bridge. A nearby information board didn’t help much as it was all in German, but we found out later it was a “Traditional Board Walk”, and it had clearly been restored to its original glory. Joe went over and tried it out.

As we were leaving Kolbrunn we looked up at the constant stream of aircraft that were passing overhead, on their way to a landing at Zurich Airport. There were literally about ninety seconds between each plane, which shows what a busy airport it is – rather like Heathrow.

We finally arrived in the village of Turbenthal, location of our hotel for the night, and were looking forward to hot showers, a good rest and some excellent food. We soon discovered, however, that the hotel was at the top of a long hill, so as we didn’t want to have to come down again later we went to the local Migros first to do our shopping and then did the climb, arriving at the Gyrenbad Hotel at around 6.15.

It was a nice hotel with comfortable beds and powerful showers. Meals were provided which were expensive but tasty as the torrential rain set in outside – we felt fortunate to have stayed dry all day, although thunderstorms were now forecast for tomorrow. Before we went to bed Tao and Joe washed their clothes in the bathroom, which made for an interesting video!

It was raining as we got up this morning, and the forecast was for it to continue raining all day. We did our best to ignore the weather outside as we enjoyed a provided breakfast of bread rolls, very nice smoked ham, Brie cheese and raspberry jam. We then took our time getting ready, looked at possible train alternatives in case the weather got really bad, then finally set off at around 10.30.

Having descended the hill back to Turbenthal, Joe decided to pay a visit to the local bike shop in order to buy himself a mudguard, as he was sick of getting plastered with mud on every cycle path, and sick of getting comments from Michael and Tao about his muddy coat! We lost our bearings a bit as we left the shop and did an unnecessary loop, but were soon back on Route 5.

It wasn’t a huge amount of fun riding all morning in the rain, and we couldn’t get the camcorder out to video the interesting places we passed, but it wasn’t too cold – around 16 degrees – so we plodded on and eventually reached Oberbüren, about twenty miles from the guest house, where some attractive Swiss cows were resting under a tree next to the Sonnenburg Horse Riding Centre. The rain had now just about stopped, which was better than we had expected, so we found a convenient bench by the River Thur and enjoyed our lunch there. Tao was not ashamed to tell us his sandwiches contained Pork Pate.

The afternoon ride was cloudy but thankfully dry. We continued along Route 5, following the river along forest tracks for a while, stopping at Riet to refill our water bottles from the delightful village fountain, and then riding through areas lined with fruit trees. At Steinebrunn we couldn’t fail to notice the cheese factory, which had a tower shaped and painted to look like an enormous block of cheese, complete with mouse. A little further along at Langrüt we saw our first ever robotic lawn mower, roaming around the garden doing its thing unattended.

We followed Route 5 right up to the Swiss border at Salmsach, then joined Route 2 heading south-east along the edge of the Ober Lake, which effectively forms the border with Germany. The route followed an electrically-powered railway line for several miles, and we guessed it might have been the overhead power lines that caused Tao’s speedo to start behaving very strangely while we were there.

There was a camp site at the end of the railway path at Buchhorn, and since they had a small shop we stopped to buy ice creams there. Next we rode along the shoreline at Abron Lake Park, and a little further along, after stopping at a tempting bakery, we had a chat with an old lady nearby. We reached Rorschach See hostel quite early, just after 5pm, and checked in at 5.15.

The hostel turned out to be really good – very modern, and with its own private swimming pool and water fun area between the hostel and the lake. Tao and Joe really wanted to enjoy these exceptional facilities, and since rain was forecast later they decided to go in first, before showering. The staff kindly turned on the pool and water slide for us, so we spent an enjoyable time swimming and using the slide. The temperature of the water was 20 degrees!
After showers we found out that the food was excellent too. The rain had now arrived, but we still decided to go for a short walk around the town, keeping to the covered walkways where possible. Some of the shops had Swiss Army knives on sale, but very few seemed to have any security on the windows. We presumed crime was virtually non-existent in Rorschach.

As we were going to bed we discovered Joe attaching stickers to his Nokia phone. He had apparently bought them from a “Girlie Vending Machine” for half a franc.

Rorschach See Youth Hostel was a very family-friendly establishment, with children running around everywhere this morning – and many of them were cyclists, which is always good to see. A baby was screaming in the adjacent room before we got up, which woke everyone except Tao apparently. Yet Tao did complain that Michael woke him up when quietly tiptoeing to the bathroom once during the night! Strange lad.

Breakfast was the usual fare we have come to expect at Swiss youth hostels, so perfectly adequate. Once again Tao was last to pack, but at least he admitted today that he is always last.

When we got out to the bike shed, Michael found a piece of cardboard attached to his Mercian bike with a note on it: “I may be old, but this bike is older – pension time perhaps? Stelvio”. Many comments sprang to mind. The Mercian was only 25 years old, so if that is older than the person who wrote it, they consider themselves old at 24? Clearly they assumed the bike was far older for some reason. Evidently, they recognised a quality, world-renowned frame when they saw it, which was a positive point. But the next question was, who is Stelvio? We thought it might have been the warden, so Michael marched off with the note to have it out with him. Sadly, there was a queue for reception, so he didn’t get chance to ask.

Weather started cloudy this morning as we set off along Route 2. When we got to Rheineck, just over five miles from the hostel, we found our familiar Route 2 and Route 9 signs pointing over a wooden footbridge that crossed the Alter Rhine river. The interesting thing about that was that the Alter Rhine is the boundary between Switzerland and Austria at this location, so Route 2 seemed to continue through Austria. Looking across the river we could see that cars on the other side seemed to have Austrian numberplates, so it really did look as though we would be going through another country on our journey today.

Cautiously we crossed the bridge, and sure enough we were immediately in Gassau, Austria, with no border checks or fanfares. The first things we saw were a café, that would have been great if it wasn’t so early in the day, and a Post Office, which looked totally different to the ones in Switzerland. The next thing we found was an ADEG convenience store, a chain we had never once seen in Switzerland. Just as we were thinking of going in to get some snacks, Joe realised he had left his coat and cover about 2km back along the path, so he set off to retrieve them while Tao and Michael contemplated using the café after all.

We soon hit our first problem. Austria uses a different currency to Switzerland - the Euro instead of the Swiss Franc – and we didn’t have any Euros. We confidently entered the ADEG store with our Swiss Francs and found that they would not accept them. Neither would they accept any kind of credit card except Maestro, and none of us had a Maestro card. We spent a considerable time looking around for somewhere to get some Euros, but there was nowhere.

Finally, we found another shop that only accepted Maestro cards again, but this one actually accepted Swiss Francs. And to add to our joy, they were very happy to give us change in Euros! We bought Austrian chocolate and drinks to celebrate our good fortune.

When Joe re-joined us, we continued along Route 2 which took us through coastal marshland known as the Rohrspitz nature reserve, in the middle of the Rhine delta. After a few miles we crossed back into Switzlerand, and once again there was no particularly obvious sign that we had done so.

We switched to Route 9 around here, which took us past the town of Au, so as it was lunchtime, we did a very small detour through the town and found a large and well-stocked Migros store for lunch. Outside we met an English chap, from Northamptonshire, who was now living in Switzerland. He welcomed us to the country.

We entered Altstätten through the industrial estates and were greeted with a very unusual work of modern art in the grounds of the company Sopel, which makes plastic bottles. Shaped like a tree, closer inspection revealed it was composed of twisted girders and rails, and even had a full-sized car on one of the branches. Joe declared it was his favourite sculpture ever.

We were soon riding along the cobbled main street of the town. Tao had been having problems with his wheel bearings, which seemed to have grit in them, so we looked for a bike shop and found Intersport which had a good stock of bicycle parts. Tao bought some bearings, Michael had some grease, so we headed out of the town until we found a quiet spot on the canal-side path near Sennwald. Here Tao settled down to regrease his front hub and fit the new bearings. Michael would have preferred to continue to the hostel and do the bearings there, but we didn’t really feel we were in any particular rush, and it was a nice place to stop for 45 minutes.

Continuing on along Route 9 to Frümsen we saw a sign to a cable car, and Joe had been longing to go on one ever since we arrived in Switzerland. It was only a very short detour to investigate. We found out it took people up to Staubern, a rocky mountain peak at 1860m that we had seen from the cycle route in the ridge of large mountains on our right. On arrival we found it was 25 Francs (£11) each return and only went every hour, and since it was already 17:23 we decided there just wouldn’t be time today. We promised to find Joe another cable car soon.

It was getting late now, and as we reached Werdenberg we encountered a nasty shower, just to slow us down a little more. After a garage stop for snacks, we quickly joined the cycle path at Buchs and followed it down the banks of the River Rhine itself, which here formed the border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein, a German-speaking microstate that is the fourth smallest country in Europe. Our hostel tonight was in Liechtenstein, on the other side of the river, and we had to ride several miles along the riverside path to find a crossing point to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein.

Michael had an idea the hostel was further down river, but a careful map check revealed we needed to cross here, at the wooden footbridge, to Vaduz. We crossed at 6.45 expecting to find clear signs to Schaan-Vaduz hostel, but there were no signs at all! We rode around in random directions hoping to find a sign, and eventually found our way by asking someone after a detour of four miles. We finally arrived at the hostel at 7.15, complaining to them about the lack of signs, although I’m not sure they were too concerned.

We were hungry of course by now and had been looking forward to a hot meal at the hostel, so the very last thing we wanted to hear from the warden was that we were too late to get a meal. Apparently, meals had to be ordered by 6pm and finished by 7.30. We had no choice but to go out again to a takeaway food place the warden told us about, and then bought some additional items from the Co-op at a nearby garage.

When we had eaten and showered, the hostel turned out to be quite nice, with lovely views. It even had TV and internet available for use by hostellers, although you had to pay to access the internet. Tao paid to go online so he could have a live chat with his partner back in England – he hoped she would be pleased to hear from him after he had gone to so much trouble!

Breakfast was included in the overnight price at Schaan-Vaduz Youth Hostel, and we were eager to see what was on offer when we went down to the dining room at 8.20. In addition to the usual cereals and rolls there was coconut yoghurt (rank, to use Joe’s terminology), pear halves with natural yoghurt and hot Ovaltine to drink that was actually pretty good. In fact, Ovaltine, or Ovomaltine as it is called in Switzerland, is so popular here that the mugs and the sugar dispensers were all branded with the name. Michael has always been something of a fan of Ovaltine, but out here in Switzerland even Tao and Joe were coming around to linking it too.

For some reason we were late getting out of our room today, which has never been a problem before. But today the warden came into our room at 10.05 and told us off, telling us we should have been out by 10.00. He even threatened us with a ten Franc fine if we didn’t leave right away! So that was the end of our plan to video inside the hostel. As we left hurriedly, he played “Kick-Out Music” as Tao described it – Please Don’t Go, Baby Come Back!

Tao is a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the mechanical state of his bike. He wasn’t happy with the play in the front wheel bearings that he replaced yesterday, so they had to be adjusted before we could leave. Then his headset was a bit loose so that needed adjusting too. And just when Michael thought we could actually get away, he started playing with his brakes, so they would be “just so”! Joe didn’t want to be left out, so he adjusted his brakes too. Michael had some fun videoing all this and making his usual amusing comments.

We rode at high speed back across the footbridge to Switzerland and the intersection with Route 9, then continued southwards along the banks of the Rhine to near Sargans, where we started following Route 2. Along the way we passed several rollerbladers careering along at speeds of around 14mph – evidently, it’s a popular way of getting around over here.

Our route took us away from the river and up to the quiet village of Fläsch, then through hillside vineyards to Maienfeld. This village was made famous by the Heidi stories, as this was the home of the fictional character. It was indeed delightful scenery.

It was gone 12.30 when we crossed the footbridge over the Landquart river, a bridge that we crossed in the other direction in 2002, but as it was a Sunday we had not seen a single shop open all morning. We tried getting to Chur where we were sure we would fine food, but we ran out of energy by 1.30 so we had to stop in the woods overlooking the Rhine near Zizers and eat whatever we had in our panniers. Joe had nothing at all, so Tao and Michael lent him something to keep him going. All Michael had was desserts, so he made do with a large tin of chocolate cream dessert, eaten directly from the tin. And he had a chocolate bar to finish with. Tao did best, with some pate, Babybel cheeses and a Swiss chocolate bar.

We had to detour slightly off Route 2 to go into Chur city centre, but we really did need to find good food. Unfortunately, it seems that pretty much everything closes in Switzerland on a Sunday, even in large City like Chur. We could only find one place open, a McDonlad’s in Alexander Street near the station. All the local kids seemed to be gathered around it, so we guessed they all knew there was no point being anywhere else. Well, we had been looking for good food, but in view of the circumstances we had to eat at McDonald’s. As we left we did find a kiosk outside the station that was open, so we got some more chocolate bars, then headed back to Route 2.

Our route out of Chur took us to Camp Au, near the river, and past an area that had nothing but sports facilities. There was a tennis club, multiple Beach Volleyball courts that were all in use, and a large indoor swimming facility that seemed to have plenty of customers. When we reached Felsberg we turned left to follow Cycle Route 6 as the rain set in. We would now follow Route 6 all the way to our guest house at Zillis, which sadly would involve a certain amount of climbing.

After passing through Domat golf course we entered the valley of the Hinter Rhine, another tributary of the great river. The Polish had constructed a path high up on the side of the valley that was quite rocky and treacherous in places – at least, that’s what we understood from Michael’s approximate translation of the French description in our cycle route guide book. We got some good views, and the cycling was fun – if only the weather could have been better. We stopped in the woods to consume our yoghurt drinks, and whilst Michael tried his best to show Joe how it should be drunk, he just didn’t seem to get the idea!

We followed the route across the river and up the valley, pausing to look at a famous Suspension Bridge between Thusis and Sils that was also mentioned in our guide. The climb then began into the Viamala Gorge, which took us through a couple of short tunnels before bringing us out at the visitor centre. Here, great views and steep staircases provided the opportunity to fully explore the spectacular gorge.

A little further up the gorge we finally reached Zillis, on the plateau at the top. We quickly found the Pro L’ava Guest House where we were booked, arriving around 6.10. The owner spoke no English whatsoever, as this was a remote area of Switzerland, but a local teacher helped translate.

The teacher then sat down with us and chatted with us for an hour, which proved very informative. Each Canton in Switzerland has its own rules. Zillis has its own primary and secondary schools in the same building. There are five multi-subject teachers in the school, although they do not all work full time. There are 35 children aged 15-16 (that might have possibly been 11-16 I suppose) and 30 younger children. He prefers the English to the Americans apparently, which makes a nice change.

The Romanish people live up on the hills around Zillis. Children spend the summer farming with parents or looking for jobs or holidaying with their families. The population of Switzerland is around 7 million, and currently around 20% are immigrants.

We all slept really well last night and awoke to tranquil mountain scenery right outside our window. Joe’s washed clothing had dried overnight but was now as stiff as a board. Our provided breakfast was large and very enjoyable, consisting of cereal, croissants, Swiss jams, honey, multiple types of bread, crisps, coffee, orange juice, hot chocolates and some cakes marked as “Torten Splügen”, which was probably a special kind of breakfast cake made down the road in Splügen. Three flies that were buzzing around were, sadly, too slow to avoid Michael’s flying hand-swatter.

As we were preparing to leave, we looked up into the surrounding mountains and saw the settlements there – after our conversation with the teacher last night we now knew those were occupied by Romanish people.

First stop was The Church of St Martin, just a few metres from our Guest House. This dates back to 840AD and has some of the oldest paintings on the ceiling that were created by an unknown artist in around 1160. As it’s a bit painful to be constantly looking up at the ceiling, they had kindly located a mirror that could be used to view the paintings in comfort.

Next stop was the nearby Volg supermarket, although Michael had to return to the church to recover his wallet as soon as we arrived. It made a change to find a supermarket that wasn’t either Migros or Coop, and once inside we also noticed that the prices were actually cheap for the first time in Switzerland. If we see any more small-chain supermarkets we will definitely check them out. Outside were several bikes on the bike racks, many of which had licence plates attached. We wondered if our bikes were illegal without licence plates, but when we made enquiries we found that licence plates were only required in the area until 1988.

As we left Zillis we rode past the combined Primary and Secondary school that the teacher had been telling us about last night.

A few miles down the road we reached the Spa resort of Andeer, and the first thing we found there was the mineral baths. “Relax in the gorgeous mountain setting of the Val de Schons” it said in the advertising literature. Well Joe, who loves water at any time of day or night, really wanted to go in there of course, so we made enquiries. Unfortunately, since Joe was “kinder” (a child), he wouldn’t be allowed in until 11.00, and since it was only 10.35, we sadly had to abandon the idea, as we had a long day ahead of us. We did take a look around the back to see the outdoor part of the baths, and it looked very inviting.

It was now a lovely sunny day, making the mountain scenery look superb as we climbed the Hinterrhein valley to the large Sufnersee reservoir. A short descent then brought us to Splügen for 12:50 where we planned to buy lunch, but here again we came across the usual problem in Switzerland – all the shops were closed for lunch from 12.00 to 2.00. They really don’t seem to have a clue about meeting customer’s needs in this country. We rode a kilometre or so out of the town, along Route 6, then found a perfect place to eat what food we had with us, complete with seat and perfect views. Joe made a “sandwich” from a whole loaf!

Route 6 continued along the River Hinterrhein to the village of Hinterrhein, but once we had taken a look in the village, the real work began with the climb to the San Bernardino Pass. We got a very good view of the multiple hairpins on the 400m climb ahead from Grossmata, and we could also see a lot of work going on at the entrance to the San Bernardino Tunnel – improvements we assumed.

It got much colder as we climbed to the top, and it was around 15:45 when we finally arrived. WE wanted a warm café, and there was a warm café of sorts, a very old restaurant that felt more like a cramped bar than a café. But it served its purpose, and we were glad to go inside for hot drinks and snacks. Tao emptied a large amount of sugar into his coffee when he thought the camera wasn’t on him, but Michael caught him in the act.

After a short ride along the top we reached the start of the very long downhill, at La Smita. It was actually freezing despite our fleeces, coats and gloves. Joe pulled his hoods around his face until he looked like an Eskimo, Michael was just shivering and wanting to get on, but Tao, being Tao, thought it would be amusing to choose this moment to take video shots of the snow on the surrounding mountains! We had done just 25 miles, with 34 to go, and it was 4.15, so Tao was soon persuaded to get a move on.

What followed was 1800m of vertical descent, with many hairpin bends. And yes, it was fun, especially as conditions began to warm up. At San Bernadino we stopped at a garage and the Denner supermarket for food and snacks, noticing that now everyone was speaking Italian – we had arrived in the Italian part of Switzerland for the first time. Everything here looked and felt very different to other parts of the country. We then continued our descent through more hairpins, taking video shots along the way, until we finally reached the lowlands at Roveredo at about 6.30. This was just 292m above sea level, so now it was much warmer, and the sun was still shining.

The descent continued more gently to Bellinzona itself. We were delayed a little when Tao missed a turn, so it was 7.45 when we finally arrived at the Hostel. The building was huge and felt more like an old hospital building inside. It was actually quite hard to find the reception, and when we did there was nobody there! We had to go to a phone booth in the reception area and ring a designated number. Apparently, the warden was having a party, but came down when we called.

We had a meal provided which turned out to be pretty good, and there was also an internet room to use during the evening. We used the facilities to wash some more of our clothes as we were now past halfway through the tour.

Belinzona Youth Hostel was originally built as a private boarding school for girls, run by the Sisters of Menzingen, but it was converted to a hostel in 2002. It certainly felt different to every other hostel we had stayed at, with long corridors, lifts, and a very Italian feel to the rooms. The provided breakfast was excellent, although not especially different to many other hostel breakfasts.

There were loads of families staying the night, so there were kids everywhere. One woman packed five under-eights in her car as she was leaving. It all made for a very happy and youthful atmosphere, so we enjoyed our stay.

Michael had a bit of a toothache coming on this morning, and he knew from experience that he would need antibiotics to put a stop to it before the pain became unbearable. He asked at reception where he would be able to get the medication, but they advised it would be harder than usual today, because today was a “special holiday”. We asked the reason for the holiday, we were told it was Assumption Day, whatever that was. Seems like there are no shortage of reasons to take time off work in Switzerland.

The advice was to try Bellinzona Hospital first, which was only half a mile from the hostel. We got there around 10.25, and 25 minutes later Michael came out with the news that there would be a 2-hour wait if we got the prescription from there, so they advised going to the only Pharmacy open today – another mile away – and getting Michael’s dentist to fax them a copy of the prescription. We finally got all that done by 12.00, but the prescription cost Michael 60 Swiss Francs, not the 16 he thought they had quoted, so that was over £30. It was a useful reminder that we are very fortunate in the UK to have the NHS.

Finally we started our journey, but at least the weather was perfect today. After riding through Old Bellinzona, where we saw the Collegiata, Bellinzona’s Catholic Church dating back to 1465, we continued along Route 3, which we would be following all day. The route was flat, and we had a slight tailwind so we made good speed. By 12.35 temperatures were rising rapidly so we were grateful to find a water fountain at Preonzo under the cool shade of a large tree.

We stopped at a garage to get some food, since we didn’t expect any ordinary shops to be open today, then after riding through Giornico we stopped for lunch by the side of the quiet road.

Pressing on again we rode under an enormous pair of bridges that had been constructed to carry the E35 road out of the mountain tunnel. At the same point, the railway line went into a huge circular tunnel in the mountains that allowed it to climb, then came out much higher. Our own road also had two hairpin bends to get us up the climb, so all in all it was a bit like Spaghetti Junction, and an example of the impressive road and rail engineering for which the Swiss are famous.

It was now very hot, so we were all looking for shade and Joe was looking for a water where he could have a swim. We didn’t find the water, but we did find shade, at Faido, where there was a shady park and playground near the Pianselva Cable Car. Michael was so hot he just flopped down under a shady tree to cool off, much to Tao’s amusement. Joe couldn’t swim, but he was able to do the next best thing and dip his head in the water trough, which Tao caught on camera. While we were there, Gavin sent us an international text to see how we were getting on. He had really wanted to come on the tour with us but had to cancel at the last minute.

The final part of our journey took us past the Rodi-Fiesso reservoir (open water, but Joe wasn’t allowed to swim there of course), an attractive lake park at Ambro called Audan Lakes where many locals were fishing and relaxing, and the Ritom Funicular Railway at Quinto which we could see on the other side of the river from Piotta. We arrived at Airolo, our destination, before 6pm.

The hostel was buried deep in the town and was not that easy to find. It was OK, but once again there was no food available. The warden recommended us to go to Borelli’s Pizza Restaurant, which he assured us was the finest pizza restaurant in town. The pizzas did turn out to be excellent despite looking like toasted stingrays, but as we had to wait half an hour for them to arrive we gave them a poor score for service.

Back at the hostel we checked the weather forecast for tomorrow, and it sounded really bad. Since tomorrow was going to be a hard cycling day with a lot of climbing, we made plans to use the train.

It was raining all night, and still raining by morning, with the surrounding mountains shrouded in cloud. Our worst fears from last night’s forecast were confirmed, so we were relieved we had decided last night to no ride the two passes we had originally planned.

We had our provided breakfast in the basement of our independent hostel, which was very cosy and warm. We particularly liked the interesting breakfast cereals on offer. A Swiss guy was having breakfast at the same time, so we chatted with him. As we were leaving the hostel just after 10am, Tao explained on video that we were in fact going to be riding the two passes today, but we wouldn’t be able to take any video shots because of the heavy rain. And if we did happen to look a bit on the dry side when we reached Fiesch, it would only be a trick of the light.

First, we rode to Airolo station to check bus and train times and discovered that train was the only option. There was a train every hour, so we booked our tickets at 10.30 and then rode on to the Airolo Cable Car which Joe was keen to try out. It had been raining all the way from the hostel (about 1.3 miles) and since we were unfortunately dressed for the train today, our trousers got totally soaked.

One woman was operating everything at the cable car. Tao and Michael paid her 15 Francs each to go up, but Joe, being Kinder, paid only 8 Francs. Joe managed to mess up the ticket machine on the turnstile, so the woman had to come and sort that out for him. She then went up with us in the Cable Car, doing her best to answer our questions even though her English wasn’t the best. It was understandably very quiet today, and she told us that the woman running the café at the top would be pleased to see us.

The journey was fun, and when we reached the top, with mist and low cloud all around us, there was only the café there to visit, as of course there is no snow at this time of year. The woman in the café was indeed pleased to see us, and her grandson, who was there helping her today, seemed even more pleased. He served us our drinks and food with great enthusiasm, and we had a good chat with both of them.

When we returned to the cable car station it looked like we had just missed the “down” car, but there was a video camera there watching, and when the woman at the bottom saw us waiting, she sent the car up to fetch us. It was all very efficient. Michael decided to change into his shorts for the journey back to the station, to avoid getting his trousers wet again.

We rode back to the station in time to catch the 11:54 train, which took us through a very long tunnel right through the mountain on which Andermatt sits, and emerged at Göschennen, on the other side of Andermatt. We changed there to a Funicular ratchet-train which took us up the mountain and back to Andermatt, with our bikes stowed in the cargo area. We got some good views from the train and took some video shots of the journey.

We arrived at around 12:20 with a plan to buy lunch while we waited for our third and final train, but once again we were in for a shock. Even here, most shops were closed for lunch between 12.00 and 2.00. In the UK we would never accept such a poor level of service, closing up just when people need to buy lunch. Browsing around we discovered that some shops were actually open, usually the ones you wouldn’t mind closing for lunch, like sports shops. Joe finally found and bought a Swiss penknife for 27 Francs in the new red style. There was a snooty American woman in the shop who was making things difficult for the shopkeeper with her demands.

Riding to the Coop Tao managed to fall off by striking the kerb off the cobbles, but he wasn’t hurt. We had to wait outside until the Coop finally opened, then we ate our lunch nearby, on a seat near the public lavatories.

After a last look in the shops we caught the train to Fiesch, a journey of 1 hour 20 minutes. In order to avoid the train having to climb to the Furka Pass, the Swiss had burrowed a 15km tunnel through the mountain. When it emerged on the far side, we were able to follow the cycle route, Route 1, that we would have taken if we had cycled, which from Blitzingen was pretty much all downhill. We managed to get the train to stop specially for us at the tiny station right outside the Olympic Sports training centre at Fiesch, where the Youth Hostel is located, so we really didn’t have any more cycling to do.

The whole site was totally amazing, with lots of buildings and incredible sports facilities scattered around an enormous campus. Many families and young people come to stay there to practice their chosen sports, so there are many accommodation blocks and a huge restaurant. The Youth Hostel was occupying Block 6 on the second floor of one of the residential buildings.

As it would be dark soon, we decided to play a round of mini golf before our meal, just for a bit of fun. And it was actually a lot of fun, as our video shots can verify. While we were playing, another train stopped to let off a huge group of youngsters who all flooded into the site – it’s good to see that Switzerland encourages its young people to get involved in sport like this.

Joe was just itching to use the internet for some reason, so we let him do that, then made our way to the huge restaurant at 6.45 for our evening meal. The three-course meal was not bad for 14 Francs, although we weren’t allowed to have any drink except water within the price, which was a bit crazy as drinks are the cheapest parts of the meal to make. While we were there, loads of kids came in to eat, presumably staying at the other accommodation blocks, so it did feel a lot like a school canteen.

We then set off to explore the grounds. There was a table tennis hall where all twenty tables were in use by young players. There were several courts, including squash, a BMX track and a climbing wall. We also found a gigantic outdoor chess set where all the pieces were stored in a huge box – Tao opened it and said this was his Pawn stash.

To conclude the evening, we went to the fabulous indoor swimming pool for a swim. There was a “Fat Check” machine in the changing rooms, which of course Joe had to try out – no, he wasn’t fat. The pool was nice, but as it was really only intended for serious swimming practice it had no toys or flumes, just a diving board. A few lads seemed to really enjoy showing off their diving skills to us – they really were very impressive. We stayed until the pool closed.

When we got back to our room, Joe realised he had left his swimming gear in the changing room. We went back with him to retrieve it, but it was now all locked up. We would have to return in the morning. Meanwhile, we had a good night’s sleep in this unreal junior sports academy.

We were woken very early this morning by the Dairy lorry clattering milk crates outside our second-floor window, presumably stocking up the restaurant for the hundreds of meals it would be serving today. Some of the sports facilities on the campus had been in use until very late last night, as we had heard some people returning to their rooms after midnight, so we didn’t get the best sleep. Breakfast back in the restaurant was good though, and Joe was able to collect his swimming kit from the pool changing rooms, although they had to be unlocked specially for us.

We had fifty miles to do today, but it was pretty much all downhill as we followed the River Rhône down the valley. After stocking up with supplies at the Coop Pronto just down from the hostel, we re-joined Route 1 and followed it as far as Mörel, about 6.3 miles from the hostel. Here we took time out from the ride to kill two birds with one stone – do some great cable car rides and see the largest glacier in the Alps.

The first cable car, or gondola lift as they call it, took us from Mörel to Riederalp, a picturesque alpine village that is notable for being totally car free. After a short walk through the village we reached the second gondola that would take us right up to the Moosfluh glacier viewpoint, 2337m above sea level. We some great views on the way up, and also noticed a Snowblower Station halfway up packed with expensive Snow Blowers, presumably to move the snow during winter season to provide the best skiing conditions.

The Great Aletsch Glacier made a fabulous sight at Moosfluh, and was unlike anything we had seen before. The glacier itself is 14 miles long, and flow marks right down its length confirmed that it is in a constant state of slow movement. We enjoyed nearly an hour there just soaking up the stillness and magnificence of the place. When we felt we had got our money’s worth from the trip we walked back to the gondola station to return to the bikes, but as we approached, the gondolas stopped moving. Closer inspection revealed that the Gondola Operator had switched it off and had sat down with his feet up to have his lunch break. He then went off to sleep! We really couldn’t believe that after paying so much for the journey up, they would keep us waiting while an operator took a lunch break, so we just talked about it on video while the time slipped away and our day’s busy schedule was put back.

We had half expected to be waiting an hour, but in fact he finished his break at 12:50 after just over half an hour. We were cold and hungry however, as we had packed light for the journey up and hadn’t brought much food. When we reached Riederalp again we complained about being kept waiting without warning, then passed some downhill karts in Funland that proved irresistible. Tao and Joe went up first, being pulled up with a lift system and then allowed to roll down the grassy slope. Then Michael and Joe went up, with Tao on camcorder. It was all good fun, although it made us even later returning to the bikes.

We stopped for lunch 15 miles from the hostel, near Lalden. Soon after that Route 1 was diverted because of a concert, but there diversion signs then disappeared so we wasted a bit of time getting back onto Route 1 again. It was all either flat or downhill however, so we covered a lot of miles.

As we approached Sion the landscape changed, with fertile slopes farmed in a unique style. We also saw the two castles of Sion on their respective rocks that seems to rise vertically out of the valley floor. It was approaching 6.30 when we finally arrived at Sion Youth Hostel.

The town of Sion was much quieter than other large towns we had visited. We were back in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, which made us all feel a little more comfortable for some reason. Today was Michael’s birthday so we were hoping our provided evening meal would be a bit special. In the event it turned out to be satisfactory, but Michael’s vegetarian birthday meal was just pasta shapes with spaghetti and very little sauce, so very dry and unimaginative.

Just after 8.30 we decided to do an evening walk through the town to Valère Castle, about a mile in total. The walk took us through the town, past an interesting waterfall, then through the old town and up the Rue des Châteaux, which was accessed via an alleyway and took us up between the two castles. Both castles were lit up, and with crickets or grasshoppers making a constant sound in the otherwise still evening it made for an incredible sight and magical atmosphere. We felt privileged to be able to simply be here on this wonderful evening as we looked back at the Sion town lights flickering below us.

One of the slightly annoying things we have discovered about Swiss breakfasts is that they don’t seem to provide dessertspoons for eating cereals, and Sion was no exception. Only tiny teaspoons were available – you could just about squeeze two Sugar Puffs on a spoon if you were lucky, so it took ages to eat a decent bowlful of cereal. Still, there were at least a nice range of cereals from which to choose.

After leaving the hostel at around 10.15 we took a quick look around the shops and set off following Route 1 along the Rover Rhône. Stupidly, however, we had forgotten to buy lunch, which meant we would be at the mercy of shopkeepers to stay open over lunchtime. The route was long, straight and flat, missing Martigny but taking us past huge fields of grapes that were ripening in the hot sunshine. We also came across some delightfully-friendly donkeys that deserved the attention they got from us.

We arrived at Saint-Marice at around 1.10pm after covering around 25 miles. This was the first place with shops on our route, and since our route took us right past Migros we stopped there to buy our food. We were annoyed but not totally surprised to find AGAIN that the supermarket had closed for lunch at 12.00 and wouldn’t reopen until 1.30. Michael was hungry, so we wandered across the road and amazingly found a bakery that was actually open. There was a good range of pasties and other baked goods there, but only one vegetarian item on display, a cheese and onion quiche. So Michael bought that and sat down in the shade outside Migros to eat it. The others, for some unknown reason, decided nothing in the bakery was good enough for them, so they waited for the supermarket to open, which of course wasted a bit more time. Still, we were out to enjoy our day, so it didn’t really matter. Tao used the time to record a video of Michael eating his lunch, commenting that he had “scoffed an entire quiche”.

It was very hot under an almost cloudless sky, so Michael stocked up with a pint of iced lemonade from Migros and we then continued along Route 1 through Massongex and Vouvry until the Rhône met Lake Geneva, then turned right to cross the Grand Canal. It was a delightful spot, and as we were queueing to cross the narrow footbridge we heard English voices from some of the passers-by and ended up having a conversation with a woman and her son from England.

Now we had arrived at the very popular, very busy, very touristy Lakeside region. Villeneuve was packed with people, as was Montreaux, but at Place du Marche we found an idyllic scene right beside the lake. There were water fountains bursting out of the ground where children could try dodging the jets. There were also Bungee trampolines, restaurants, a seating area that overhung the lake, fabulous views across the lake to the alps and a dreamlike lazy atmosphere where nobody seemed to be in a hurry to do anything. We could happily have stayed there for hours. Michael wondered why the Lada Diana Spencer memorial in London couldn’t have been made like the fountain here, so children could actually play in it instead of just having to look at it.

We pressed on along Route 1, which followed the shoreline past many more fountains and pools. We were desperately looking for shade, and eventually found some in the form of a single shady tree near Pully. Ice creams were being sold nearby, so we grateful settled down under the tree to cool off, rest and enjoy our icy refreshments.

Time was getting on however, and though it felt this long day would never end we continued onwards to Lausanne, where our tour had started what seemed like weeks ago. As before it was a happy, playful place to be, and we were glad to return. We quickly found the hostel this time where we arrived by 6.50. We had been put in exactly the same room as before, which didn’t seem like it could be a coincidence since there were many rooms in this enormous hostel.

We were very grateful to have meals provided on this last night in Switzerland, and tonight we were treated to Steak and Fish, all prepared to a good standard.

We would have to leave early tomorrow and didn’t want to make any wrong turnings, so after our meal we cycled to the station and collected our bike bags which had been kept for us there. Returning to the hostel we got an early night and slept well, although perhaps feeling slightly sad that tomorrow we would be going home.