September 6, 2022
Lesser Spotted Switzerland: Valchava to Scuol
I really liked my stay at the Hotel Central -- such a welcoming and comfortable place, and very well set up for people doing outdoors-ish things, not least in the extremely good food provision. This continued at a breakfast which featured, inter alia, home made cheeses and nusstorte, as well as special instructions on producing the optimal soft-boiled egg at 1400m above sea level.
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However: places to go, things to see! (And, more pressingly, another pass to climb...)
I was now on Swiss cycle route 27, and was reminded shortly after setting out that one of the features of these routes is their fondness for following gravel tracks up the valley sides, even when the main road on the valley floor isn't all that busy. Still: the views are good!
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After a little while, the cycle route rejoined the main road and followed it up today's main climb: the Ofenpass/Pass dal Fuorn.
Before too long (relatively speaking..) I was at the top, where I stopped to enjoy an excellent nussgipfel (surely one of Switzerland's greatest, and most underrated, contributions to world cuisine?). There was only a handful of other cyclists on the climb, but the summit car-park was full of cars involved in some sort of transalpine rally, their drivers comparing notes on where the speed cameras might be placed on the road ahead. I can't quite see the appeal of this sort of thing, I have to say -- but probably there's someone writing the same thing about touring cyclists over on a car drivers' forum as we speak...
Anyway: the cars were all heading the other way, so didn't trouble me as I set off again -- downhill, but yet again a downhill which included a hefty uphill along the way: completely unreasonable behaviour, in my opinion. Other than that, though, this was a really brilliant stretch: the road went through the Swiss National Park, a wild landscape which seems quite unlike other bits of the country. It felt almost like I'd been transported to the Icefields Parkway for an hour or so.
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I reached Zernez (at the boundary of the National Park) at about lunchtime, and noticed a cluster of hi-viz-clad road workers sitting outside a Gasthof. One of my travelling/eating rules of thumb is that people in hi-viz know where the good food is, so this seemed like a good place to stop. Another of my travelling/eating rules of thumb is that ordering something a bit mysterious from a menu can be a good way to sample tasty local food. That rule backfired today, though, when the Mysterious Thing, which I thought would probably be some type of pasta or dumpling, turned out to be a massive bowl of Tripe Stew. Oh.
To be fair, it was relatively Unchallenging Tripe (concealed in a nice tomato sauce, and liberally coated in cheese) but still, probably not the ideal cycling food. At least I'll know for next time, though.
At Zernez, the Spöl flowed into the En (or Inn: it was only now that the penny dropped that these are, in fact, the same river...), and the cycle way turned into the Inn Radweg, heading downstream towards (ultimately) the Austrian border. The path was again a mixture of gravel and paved (though all traffic-free), and soon, once more, showed a fondness for taking the scenic route. This meant some steep climbs; but at least the scenery really was scenic.
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Another compensation for coming the long (and hilly) way round was that the route passed through some beautiful villages, packed with cobbled (and steep!) streets and fantastically decorated houses.
I'd plummeted back down to the valley floor at Ardez, and was about to start the climb up to the last of these villages, Ftan, when I passed a sign saying that the road ahead was closed. It wasn't clear if this also applied to bicycles, but I decided not to risk it and detoured at last down to that tempting, flat, empty main road. (Which did, of course, turn out to have a massive hill in it too...)
This delivered me fairly speedily to my destination for today: Scuol.
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First stop here was the Co-Op where, to my great relief, I was able to buy a new usb charging plug (I'd left my original one behind in Bolzano -- too distracted by the Pillow Menu! -- and had been eking out the battery on my phone and gps between there and here, wondering if I might need to hop on a train to a bigger town to find what I needed. But for future reference: the Scuol Co-Op has an impressively well-stocked electronic supplies section...). Second stop was my Pension for the night. And third stop was the entirely excellent Bogn Engiadina, the thermal baths, for some much-needed Wellness: soaking in the hot tubs with a fine view of the mountains. Fourth stop was dinner, where, this time, my policy of ordering the Mysterious Thing did pay off ('Cullas de Vna', which turned out to be some delicious potato and bacon patties; followed up with Engadiner Nusstorte: not a mystery, but I think one should really eat it at every meal when in this part of Switzerland).
Overall: a really great day (even allowing for the tripe!), through a fabulous corner of Switzerland.
Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 630 km (391 miles)
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