We awoke to a tent coated in slugs. It was an easy morning actually, because most of our things were with Andres and Elena in their van over night. We had a great morning – they shared their breakfast with us – coffee, croissants, banana, and bread with a garlicy tomato salsa. We spent a bunch of time trying to reverse the direction of the EuroVelo GPS track that I had and got it sent to the Garmin after much wrangling.Viki and I started cycling and they drove off to go climbing.
The morning started with nice roads along the lakes between Como and Lugano. We saw many pelotons of cyclists, all wearing matching kit. We also saw the highest density of Porsches either of us had ever seen. Viki thinks there must have been a convention. It definitely is wealthier on the Swiss side though.
In our initial hours through Switzerland we made some comparisons to where we’d cycled in Italy. There were no bars on building windows. The grape vines were more neat, all with netting. Stores were completely closed on Sundays, rather than being open for a few hours. Everything feels a bit safer. Prices are significantly higher.
In the afternoon we realized that we’d be passing the climbing area where Andres and Elena were. We had lunch around 50km (using up some of our precious Italian resources – baguette, olive oil, prosciutto, and the fancy fresh cheese). We then saw the others at 75km. Fantastically, they made us coffee and instant noodles – a great pick up towards the end of the day.
We drudged on to 110km, to the end of the valley before the mighty climb up Gotthard Pass. We anticipate tomorrow will be our hardest day of the trip, definitely the highest.
We’ve just finished dinner of rice, half a stock cube, some olive oil, and a bunch of salami (and delicious fresh pears that a tree was so gracious to share with us earlier in the day). Now 9:20pm and getting to sleep before our big day tomorrow.
Good luck tomorrow. X