We were excited to get in to Switzerland and have another look at it. Last year we had just passed by Basel, and were disappointed to find it a chemical plant wasteland, though we were told there was some good stuff we missed, on the other side of the Rhine.
Like typical dumb tourists, we have a chocolate, cheese, Heidi - alpine village, swiss brown cow image of the country. We were cheating a bit, by not heading for the alps, but still hoped Switzerland would deliver a bit of its image to us lower down. We also had no idea at all about what we would find in the cities, like Zurich and Geneva, and were looking forward to some pleasant surprises. Nagging at the back of the mind was also some Google street view looking around, which revealed some very plain scenes.
Very plain was soon downgraded to downright ugly as we cruised to and through the first sizable town - Rorscach, which is on the lake. Here, and for the entire Swiss lakeshore, we found a jumbled mess of overhead lines, poles, railroad lines, and ugly square box apartments that make the efforts in the GDR look downright attractive. Only by looking out to the lake could we see anything worth looking at here.
We ran into a fellow bike tourist, Helmut, from Dortmund, and of course enjoyed comparing notes. Helmut had one theory for the unattractveness of Rorsach. He pointed out that it only gets the morning sun, because of being hidden under the Alps. Bregenz gets the good sun, and therefore the attractive more tourist oriented development. Possible.
We nipped into town to find a bank from which to get Swiss francs. Again, Swiss Bank is a tourist image. My bank was a drab ATM, and it rejected my Canadian VISA card, only acepting my French one. So much for Swiss banking, at least for now.
Back on the lakeside path, Dodie noticed a man whose pack was falling off his bike. Strapping on packs is a Dodie specialty, so she flagged him down. Turned out to be Robert, from Kelowna, inour home province. What's more, another member of his little group, Gail, was from Cowichan Bay, about 4 km from our house. What a small world!
We carried on along the Lakeside, running in to two miscellaneous attractions: a sand sculpture festival and a dinosaur model park. Interesting, but not what we expected. Could be good for kids, though.
Before Romanshorn we turned west, onto our chosen way the Mittleand Route, which is Swiss national route 5. This climbed up and away from the lake, passing through very serious plantations of apples, raspberries, and other fruits, kncluding strawberries in three foot high rows standing on feet.
As we got further from the lake we got glimpses of the Swiss image - hill towns with flowered houses, church spires, cows, meadows. Yes, it was sort of there, but it was not really blow you away lovely. Tough customers!
Things went "downhill" when the route designers decided to take us along the Thur river. Here was an extensive series of displaysnabout the European beaver (biber), of which we have yet to see a one, nor any evidence like chewed trees. Anyway, it was kms of gravel path by the river. Some was uphill, and some was very deep gravel. Not good for people tring to reach very distant and rare camping.
A final super steep uphill gravel path popped us out - where? It turned out to be Wil, still 30 km from our target. Wil was downright butt ugly, and the hot fed up Grampies were not saying nice things about Switzerland. Just beyond Wil, on gravel again, we gave up, and pitched our tent by a bench in the w oods. We heard cow bells until quite late, indicating industrious swiss cows. Well, that fits the image. Tomorrow we will see if the country can come with anything else to keep us here!
Here are today's photos, captions sometime soon! ... Ok, aptions are in there!
p.s. If you enjoyed this blog (or not) credit (or not) goes to Dodie who is cooking and setting up/taking down the tent while I blither on!
