Day 47: Aarburg to Sutz (just past Biel)

September 3, 2013

Last night as we cooked in the common kitchen area we got to speak to a woman from Geneva. Ruth spoke French, and it was quite a bonus to be able to communicate reasonably fluidly. We talked about the icky housing in this area, and showed her some of our photos. We also griped about the very reserved people, something we have not mentioned yet here in the blog.

Ruth attributed the dense new housing to the small size of the country, and the proximity here to the bigger cities. She also cited small size as responsible for the people feeling vulnerable to being overrun, whether by immigants or tourists or both.

However, Ruth told of her trip yesterday up into the mountains. Though she is from here, she said, she found the beauty heart stopping.

The bakery in Aarburg was like the other one (or two) that we have found in Switzerland - limited selection, good quality, and ferocious prices. We bought two or three things, paid our 9 francs, and headed through the surprisingly tough traffic, over the bridge and back up the river. We started with a nice comforting Route 5 sign, but construction soon put an end to nonsense like signage.

Actually, the construction did send us with a sign down into a gully, and in the gully was waiting not another sign but rather the Swiss army. Dodie glided up to the guys with the assault weapons and asked what happened to the route. We don't know, was the reply, but one of the troop pulled out his HTC handy to have a look. The ever cheeky Dodie said "Make sure you don't go off and invade anybody until you figure out where you are!" "Let's see", said the troop, "which way is the river flowing?" (because of course, the river flows from the Alps). "Good" they concluded, in highly cute Swiss accents, "go over this bridge".

So we did that. After about 20 minutes of finding no further sign of the bike route, we pulled out the GPS and concluded there was no way forward on this side of the river. So we used the GPS to make our way back to the bridge, waved to the soldiers, and went the other way.

The soldier looks like he is scratching his head in bewilderment, but he is only putting on sunscreen.

Looking at the map on a poster board, Dodie said Ï can't find the fuss n radweg". Since Dodie would **never**

From that point our ride became what we rather hoped for and expected for this Swiss bit. We passed through villages with interesting buildings, had cows to look at and photograph, and got some glimpses of snow covered Alps. We came to a farm store where we could buy cheese, garlic sausage, unique Swiss packaged cookie/cakes and ripe plums (as opposed to the half ripe ones we mostly pilfered from roadside trees). The path was partly paved, partly gravel, partly shared with cars, and partly by the river. How about this: we even saw one small grocery store!

Farm barn sides are usually decorated, like this

Later, we passed by Solothurn, which looked a substantial town. We could have easily gone to explore its narrow streets, because our route skirted it by the river which it sits by. However, we were intent on rushing down to bypass the next big town, Biel, so off we went.

Along the way we pulled into a little layby to eat our sandwiches. We were happily sitting there when a fully loaded tourist swooped down the hill and smoothly pulled in beside us. Just this one act impressed us immediately. Even we do not stop to talk to every loaded cyclist on the path, but we always greet each one. Some just glumly speed by, some will nod, a certain number will stop. But Maurizio, as he turned out to be, never hesitated - he just swung in.

Being impressed continued as we learned that Maurizio was just cycling from his home, Basel, back to Basel. Except his circle was to South Africa and back! He had been on the road two years, and we had run into him about one day from home!

Maurizio's website is www.ceraldi.ch We do not have internet enough to check it out right now, but maybe you, the reader of this, can. Anyway, we enjoyed looking at the souvenir stickers and doodads that Maurizio had on his bike, and of course comparing notes. Here are some summary things we found out or talked about:

Bike computers break a lot. Maurizio was on his fifth. Drivers in Switzerland are highly inconsiderate of bikes, and generally do not believe in ever slowing down. In Africa, cycling is safer than Switzerland because roads and cars are poorer. In Africa internet cafe is more available, because not everyone has 3G on their cell phone.

We showed Maurizio the cookies we had bought at the farm market, and his face lit up. These are apparently very common, and he had not seen them, of course, for two years. We split the two flavours, so we could see what they are like. With a round of mutual photo taking, we were both off. We at least felt energized to have met a serious cyclist. And the fact that Maurizio seemed to find us interesting had us thinking maybe we are becoming a bit serious too!

Now we looked at the map and found that since we were entering a tourist area at or near the Bieler See, there was a choice of campgrounds we could conceivably reach. So after in previous days complaining of being stretched to reach someplace, we now bypassed two or three and went for one past Biel, along the lake shore.

The camping was called Camping Sutz, and in principle should have been pretty good. It does have good sanitary facilities, and a lighted room with table, chairs, and power. However, the reception girl was the most sullen service worker possible. We could see one way and another that she knew French and English, but she would only speak to us in Swiss German. This despite the glossy campsite printed materials which are equally in the three languages. She rejected our International Camping Card and demanded our passports. And the charge for a piece of grass: 31 Francs.

Our piece of grass was in the "camping meadow" near the sanitary block. Here congregated about ten teenage boys and ten girls. We are not sure who theoretically was supervising them, but they ran around shouting (boys) or shrieking (girls). Dodie had some harsh words with one of them who mucked with our tent fly - which was hanging to dry.

Dodie is fed up with aggressive, unresponsive, Swiss - whether motorists, other cyclists, walkers who look away when greeted, snotty campsite girl, or shrieky teenagers.

On three occasions we asked pedestrians for directions, and while they were friendly enough once we got their attention, we have found you need to shove your bike in front of them to make them stop. Oh well, soon we will be among the happy go lucky French. Ha ha.

Many sunflowers are ready - the season is advancing!

Gefahr of the week! Danger of falling into a beaver house.

A Gallery of great Swiss shots from today.

As mentioned above, our ride today brought many of the sights we had hoped for as we cross Switzerland. Here is a gallery of what we saw. What do you think?

Today's ride: 82 km (51 miles)
Total: 3,118 km (1,936 miles)

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