Day 6- 350kms 10hrs and 5 passes.

This morning I am sitting on the balcony of our hotel with a cuppa looking out over Lake Vierwald (Vierwald stätter See the map says). It is going to be a good day because, for the first time on the trip, I am getting an early morning cuppa. Tea and coffee faculties in your hotel room has not been the normal in our Europe experience. Now to yesterday.

After our first day, we left in the morning knowing today will be a big day. The passes today are good fun. We took our turn at being the tail-end Charlie for today. This task involves make sure you bring up the rear and no one gets left behind. Not long in we made our first stop at a look out at the Maloja pass that is not really a pass - bit like going over Mt Mee near Brisbane but to be fair, the valleys are not as spectacular or deep there as they are here.

From here, we rode on the secondary road which ran along side the highway and through the small villages along the way. It reminded me of our Blue Ridge Parkway experience in the US or like parts of the old Bruce at home. The difference here to home is that they are well maintained. It was interesting talking to Harvey and Conor, the father and son team who live in Seattle. They believe that Canada has much better road conditions than the US. We thought the US was great so Canada must be outstanding. We will have to check them out one day.

This road lead us into the next pass, Splügen pass. This had a couple of tunnel sections in it that added to the interest. We had a pretty good run up here and stopped at the top for a coffee break. I tried a capachino for the first time. Mainly because Axel our guide today orders one and all I had to do was say “same”. Robyn got us three piece of peacan pie for herself, Anna and I. Both the coffee and the pie was very good. We had crossed in Italy again so she went to the counter prepared to pay in franks and it turned out to be euro. A euro is about 1.2 franks. If you pay in euro in Switzerland they give you change in franks and work on 1:1. So it is best to have the right money for the right country or just pay with your Visa card and let the bank an Home do the converting.

We crossed back into Switzerland again, going over the San Bernardo pass. This was a fun winding road a bit like the Gillies but longer with a couple of sections of open hairpins. Following today made it hard to gather and maintain our rhythm and found ourselves too close to the back of the riders in front because someone ahead of us did not ride into the corners the same way we would. San Bernardo Pass got a mention on Top Gear as a nominee for one of the world Best roads. All I can say is it was not bad.

From there our travel took us down into the valleys where it was hot again. About 30 this time. Follow these secondary roads to Arbedo-Castione before heading north to a road side café for lunch. This time paying was the other way round and we were ready with our franks. From here we had two more passes, Lukmainier Pass and Oberalps Pass. The second of theses was quite high with snow not far from the road.

We were all done by the time we fueled at Altdorp to finish the day with a short run to our accommodations at Brunnen. The short run turned out to be longer as we got caught in a traffic jamb of weekend travelers heading home.

Not that we had time to follow this up but Altdorf is supposed to be the home town of Willian Tell. There is a statue there to remember him although it would appear that he is a much myth and historical figure. But why would anyone let the truth get in the way of a good story.

As I said at the start the view from our hotel in Brunnen is amazing. Our room looks out over the lake with the mountains in the background. Monday starts with a ferry ride across the lake.