Switzerland

We arrived in Switzerland via overnight train from Florence. Along the way, we met a couple that we just finishing a long bike tour through Tuscany with two kids! Not only did they have to pull the kids in trailers, but also they carried all of the additional supplies (sleeping bags, larger tents, food) that kids would need. We had thought we were doing pretty well until that point...

Anyway, we immediately struck by how friendly people were in Switzerland. Within a few hours of arriving, three people had spontaneously stopped to ask questions about our trip and offer us help. Fortunately, the Swiss cycling infrastructure is superb and we once again had the luxury of multiple bike paths stretching across the country, all well signed and marked.

We began in Basel, in northern Switzerland, and headed south for a few days. This area was very pretty with some steep hilly sections, but mostly rolling agricultural lands.



Many times we rode right next to grazing dairy cows with bells around their necks clanking away as they stared curiously at us. One interesting feature of this area were road-side stands selling fresh cherries every few kilometers. I wouldn't have expected cherries to be a major crop in Switzerland, but they certainly rivaled anything produced in the Okanagan.







We continued along this path for a few days until we approached a small city called Yverdon-les-Bains. At this point, the weather was beginning to worsen (the sky was clouding over) and our destination was still a few hours away, on the other side of a fairly long climb along a highway (not a bike path). We decided to err on the side of caution and stop at the Yverdon campsite for the night. We had just taken our bags off our bikes and unpacked our tent when the skies opened, dousing us with rain. Neither of us had seen such heavy rain in our memories. We rushed to get the tent set up and throw a tarp over our bags - but this hardly helped because the ground was flooding and our bags were sitting in a few centimeters of water! The wind also began to blow strongly enough that we had to grab our tent and peg it down very firmly to prevent it from blowing away. A very kind gentleman in a neighboring trailer offered to shelter our bags (or ourselves) inside, but we declined, thinking the damage had already been done and rain that heavy couldn't last and . And it didn't - after about five minutes, it tapered off. We were very proud that our trusty little tent stayed almost perfectly dry inside, despite being set-up in the rain and sitting in a pretty deep pool of water for a few minutes. Our sleeping bags, in water-proof stuff sacs, were fine. Everything else varied from damp to soaked. We spent most of the night drying off in the campsite pub as a steady drizzle set in.




The next morning, we took advantage of a break in the weather to take down our tent and pack up. We had decided to catch another train to Interlaken to try to get ahead of the rain. We had just set out for the 5 minute ride to the station when it began to pour again, though, soaking us thoroughly. We dried out as much as we could on the train and enjoyed some beautiful rainbows during our train-ride to Interlaken.