We had been longing for the chance to return to Switzerland ever since our first tour there in 2002, and this year, finally, all the ducks lined up and we were off. Our originally planned contingent of four was reduced to three when Gavin had to cancel at the last minute, but we were still very much looking forward to a great adventure.

We were going to travel to Switzerland by land in one day this year, which meant starting very early at Newton abbot – 6.08am to be precise. In order to get ultra-cheap tickets we had bought a special LeisureDay ticket from Rail Europe, but that ticket was only valid if we took the slow train from Exeter to Waterloo. It’s hardly surprising that, once we had changed at Exeter to the 06:28 Waterloo train, we spent a good deal of time trying to catch up lost sleep.

Arriving at Waterloo at 10:19 we didn’t have far to walk to get to the Eurostar trains, which leave from Waterloo, so we had to admit this was an advantage in going on that route. We had to disassemble our bikes outside the Eurostar terminal and pack them into the bike bags we had brought with us, since Eurostar trains don’t carry whole bikes for some reason. There wasn’t a huge amount of space to carry out this operation, but an official told us it would be OK to do it by the wall in front of one of the three entry gates, which was closed at that time. Before we had finished, however, they opened the gate, and both Tao and Joe got told off by another station official for being in the way! Tao helpfully suggested it might be easier for them to scan a whole bike rather than a bag of bits.

Half an hour later we lugged our bikes through passport control, where full passport checks were carried out, and we were then able to board the 12:09 service to Paris, which sped through the tunnel once it had negotiated the slow tracks to Folkstone. Once again we were very sleepy after such an early start, and both Tao and Joe were caught snoozing on video.

We arrived at a very busy Gare du Nord station in Paris at 15:59 local time just as a thunderstorm was depositing its huge load on the city. Tao immediately found some luggage trolleys which made the task of carrying our bagged bikes and luggage off the platform a good deal easier, but this was only delaying the difficult task we faced of carrying everything through the Paris Metro to Gare de Lyon station. We would have far preferred to reassemble the bikes first, but since the TGV train also required bikes to be in bags, we just didn’t have the time to assemble and disassemble again. So we had no choice but to make the best of the situation. It was very hard work dragging bikes and panniers such a long way, and we saw virtually nothing of Paris while we were there except the Metro stations.

We caught the 1804 TGV train from Gare de Lyon for our four-hour journey to Lausanne in Switzerland. When the guard checked our tickets he found something wrong with them and surcharged us several Euros each, but it wasn’t really clear to us what was wrong with them. We welcomed the chance of a nice long rest after all the difficulties in Paris however. Michael was caught on camera enjoying the Millie's Cookies he had bought in London.

We arrived in Lausanne just after 10pm, a few minutes later than the scheduled arrival of 21:58. We had stayed at Lausanne hostel on our last visit but we had never ridden there from the station, since last time we started the tour at Basel. We knew roughly where it was though, so with a little guesswork we managed to find it. The hostel was still the prison-like concrete structure it had been in 2002, but we all had a good night’s sleep in our modern 4-bed room on the ground floor.

We had a bit of a lie-in this morning after such a busy day yesterday, finally getting up for our provided breakfast after 9am. Lausanne hostel is large, so breakfast was canteen-style but perfectly acceptable. Joe had a problem with his rear gear cable that needed sorting, as he couldn’t change gear at all. Before we left Michael demonstrated the satisfying sound made by the room lock when the card was inserted.

We had the rest of the morning to enjoy Lausanne, so we made our way past the Olympic building to the Vidy Promenade, on the edge of Lake Geneva, and followed the shoreline back into Lausanne. The sun was shining and the whole scene was every bit as good as we remembered from four years earlier. We could even see the Alps rising out of the mist on the far side of the lake.

There was also something new to see – a massive outdoor cinema screen and seating, erected for the summer at Quai du Vent-Blanc and sponsored by Orange. It was folded down during the daytime, but we were fascinated to know what it would be like to watch a movie in the open air after dusk.

We needed to get lunch, and whilst looking for a supermarket we found a souvenir shop filled with hundreds of cuckoo clocks. Next, we found a Pastry shop, which suited Michael perfectly, and finally the Migros supermarket that we had been looking for. We took our food down to the lakeside, at Place du Vieux-Port, where Joe entertained us by feeding a flock of acrobatic birds that could catch crumbs in mid-air. There was also a large group of schoolchildren having lunch in the same area, and we were not at all surprised when they turned out to be extremely well behaved.

Our plan today included taking a train halfway across Switzerland to Olten and continuing the ride from there. It took us half an hour to find the railway station, and then we just managed to buy our tickets in time to catch the 13:20 train. It was an impressive double-decker train, and when we were on board, we began to discover other features that made it better than any other train we had been on – there was ample space for bikes and luggage, close to our seats, and there was even a creche upstairs for toddlers. Tao called it a Super Dooper train, which seemed like a pretty good description.

We had to change trains at Bern, then found ourselves sitting near a Swiss teacher who turned out to be very interesting. We commented how well-behaved the schoolchildren had been at Lausanne.

At Olten we disembarked and resumed cycling, following National Cycle Route 5 towards Brugg. The weather was still fine and sunny when we started. Riding through Schönenwerd we came across two factory outlet warehouses adjacent to each other selling bikes and sports equipment. Tao found his dream bike, Joe bought a cassette and a fancy speedo, and Michael bought a cone spanner and a flashy orange cycling shirt. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that we were there for nearly an hour.

Continuing along Route 5, which followed the River Aare for the most part, we detoured at Aarau to get some refreshments from the Migros supermarket there, and while we were inside a thunderstorm came along and kept is inside a little longer than we had planned. Now rather late we set off at high speed through the rain along the woodland cycle path, but there was some kind of clay in the paths that dissolved in the rainwater, and Joe, who didn’t have mudguards, quickly got filthy.

Typically, the rain stopped just as we approached Brugg. There was a traditional Swiss water trough outside, so Joe washed off the worst of the mud out there. Somehow, Michael had lost his water bottle along the final section of cycle path, but there was no way he was going back to look for it now.

Brugg Youth Hostel was a very old building, and one of the consequences of that was that it had no internet. We had apparently arrived too late to get food, so after showering and settling into our room we were directed down the path to Brugg Leisure Centre where there was a Pizza Shop. We selected one from the menu, which the proprietor assured us was “a very fine pizza”, and indeed it was pretty good. There were a number of flies buzzing around however, which detracted somewhat from the experience. One of the bottles of condiments on the tables was called Maggi, something Michael had never heard of, so Tao, who knew all about it of course, brought Michael up to speed.

Back at the hostel we slept well in our ancient room, which definitely had plenty of Swiss character.

We had an acceptable night at Brugg youth hostel once we found comfortable positions in the sheet sleeping bags and got used to the constant dripping sound from the water butt in the courtyard outside. We had a provided breakfast this morning, and whilst it was nothing special, it was again OK. Before we left Joe fitted his new £15 speedo to his bike as the town clock struck ten, and then we were off on a hot, sunny morning.

We were following National Cycle Route 5 all the way to Zurich, so all we had to do was watch out for the signs that were visible if you kept your eyes open. At Dättwil, near Baden, we noticed a BMX track underneath a flyover so stopped there for a few minutes while Tao and Joe rode everything a couple of times, just because it was there. We agreed it was a very good way to use space that would otherwise be wasted.

Riding through Baden we saw numerous cranes in operation, as we noticed on our previous tour to the country, passed an HEP station and then a comprehensive Sports Centre where children were jumping and diving confidently off the lower diving boards. A double-decker train crossed Route 5 right in front of us at Kempfhof, and then our cycle route took us through a delightful farming village called Oetlikon – Michael filmed our journey through. At the far end of this section, near Lake Katzen, we came across an enormous field of sunflowers, and Joe couldn’t resist pulling a face on one of them to compete with others that had been similarly crafted.

Route 5 took us right into Zurich, but somewhere along the way we missed a sign and ended up riding past Flussbad Public Swimming Faciliy, a safe swimming area in a kind of canal that splits off from the river. There was a changing area and a diving board, and even a lifeguard waiting at the lower end in case anyone got into difficulty, although we didn’t think she looked too capable if anything were to go wrong. Joe, being an original Water Baby, just had to get in the water. First he went down the steps, but once out in the middle of the channel he found the current so fast flowing that he couldn’t swim back to the steps, so we waved as he was carried down to the grill near the Lifeguaard. Meanwhile some local children showed us how to really enjoy the water by jumping off the much higher bridge that crossed the facility – they really were fearless. Not to be outdone, Joe plucked up courage and jumped off the diving board, once again being swept down to the grill. But of course a few seconds later one of the local lads again showed us how it should be done by doing a proper high-flying dive off the board.

Picking up Route 5 again we followed the river all the way to the centre of town, next to Lake Zurich. We found a Migros Take Away nearby that had a kind of restaurant in it, so we were able to buy lunch there that turned out to be exceptional. Michael had wanted us to go on a boat trip this evening, but neither Tao nor Joe fancied that for some reason, so we planned to look around the town and museum and then walk around the lake this evening.

After Migros we came across the Victorinox Flagship store, selling every variety of Swiss Army Knife you could imagine. They had the world’s largest on display as well, for 849 Swiss Francs, but we really couldn’t imagine how such a large tool could be useful. We guessed it was quite clever though. When we got to the Swiss National Museum at 5.10pm it was sadly closed, so all we could do was look at some groupies setting up some kind of concert outside.

The hostel was a little way from Zurich centre, and someone had told us we could get to it easily by going to the station and following Tram number 7, which would go right past the door. Well we found the station, saw Tram 7 and chased after it, but it soon got away from us. At least we were headed in the right direction. It seemed like a very long way, but eventually we found the hostel, a very large modern building clearly designed to cope with large numbers of guests. It was so large that it had a lift, and the evening meal was adequate for 16 Swiss Francs.

Showered and fed, we set out for evening ride around the lake at around 8pm, which turned out to be nine miles there and back. We soon found the western edge of the lake, got our bearings for returning again later and followed the lakeside path around to the eastern side. There was a lovely atmosphere everywhere, with live music and people enjoying the evening in various ways. We all commented on how safe it felt here, unlike similar large cities in other countries. We were supposed to push our bikes along the path, but both Tao and Joe thought it would be fine to cycle slowly, so we all did.

At Zurichhorn we came across the Ball Fountain, and interesting water sculpture where the large sphere could be rotated in any direction as it floated on the bed of water. Just around the corner from there we came across our second open-air cinema of the tour, but this time it was evening and a large audience were entering ready for the evening’s film presentation. We didn’t see much point in paying to go in, as the film would probably have a German soundtrack, but we found a position just next to the screen, by the lake, where we could see everything. We had to wait 20 minutes for darkness to fall, then the screen was raised up and the advertisements started. We all thought it was a great idea, and if they had been showing a film in English we would have loved to go in and soak up the experience.

On our way back to the hostel we encountered more memorable scenes, with tasteful live music and singing by the waterside. Zurich is indeed a unique city.

Back at the hostel, to make sure we had everything for our breakfast tomorrow we asked the warden for some milk to put in the fridge. Unfortunately the warden wouldn’t sell us any, instead giving us directions to a BP garage that was supposedly only five minutes away. Well it was a lot more than that, being right down by the lake and half a mile in each direction – we needed rambling socks for that little journey!

We were sharing our room with a guest from Pakistan who was quite interesting.

Zurich youth hostel claims to be “one of the most modern in the world, open round the clock so you can really get to know Zurich, the little city on a global scale. The hostel has a roomy entrance hall and a spacious inner courtyard for the international globe-trotting community to meet for good cuisine and comfortable rooms in a quiet city location close to the lake”.

It went on: “Chat about your last Asian or American trip in the big entrance hall, exchange information and trips on the leisure activities on offer in Zurich, pick up the latest international news headlines on the big-screen TV while eating a snack or play a game of billiards - all of this at any time, around the clock, 365 days a year.”

After reading all that we expected great things as we went down for our provided breakfast, and to our surprise we were not disappointed. A girl from Turkey sat with us over breakfast and talked at length about our respective travels – all very interesting. As we left the dining room she was even telling us of her travels to America and Asia, just like the hostel brochure had told us she would!

When Tao had taken some video shots around the hostel we rode the two miles back into Zurich and went on a bit of a shopping spree in the Old Zurich area. This included walking up one of the towers of Zurich Cathedral, which gave us superb views all around the city. Soon after 12, however, we thought we had better get a move on.

We made our way out of the city more successfully than we had found our way in, eventually re-joining Cycle Route 5 not far from where we had left it. Joe was listening to his Sony Walkman while cycling out of the city, and because he couldn’t hear properly he nearly had an accident. He learned his lesson from that.

Somewhere along the cycle route we saw a strange sign that warned us about “Danger of Death”. We weren’t quite sure from where the danger emanated, but we managed to avoid death one way or another. We missed one of the cycle route signs and rode for more than twenty minutes before realising the signs had stopped, so we had to do some backtracking to get on the correct route.

A little further along the path was blocked by workmen digging up the road, and after wondering for a while which way to go we noticed some small orange signs that said simply “dev”, which apparently marked our temporary diversion route.

We got to Basserdorf, around 17 miles into the ride, by around 2.15, so detoured into the town to the Migros supermarket where we bought lunch. A storm came along while we were in there, so we ate our food under the shelter of the nearby bike stands.

Pressing on through Lindau and Wintersberg we came across a large field near a remote car park near Winterthur where crews were erecting stages, marquess and audio equipment for some kind of concert. It all looked very impressive, but we couldn’t see any signs about who would be playing.

There followed a long drag through forest tracks that wasn’t particularly inspiring. At Kolbrunn we came across some strange planks that had been laid across the river Töss in a kind of pedestrian bridge. A nearby information board didn’t help much as it was all in German, but we found out later it was a “Traditional Board Walk”, and it had clearly been restored to its original glory. Joe went over and tried it out.

As we were leaving Kolbrunn we looked up at the constant stream of aircraft that were passing overhead, on their way to a landing at Zurich Airport. There were literally about ninety seconds between each plane, which shows what a busy airport it is – rather like Heathrow.

We finally arrived in the village of Turbenthal, location of our hotel for the night, and were looking forward to hot showers, a good rest and some excellent food. We soon discovered, however, that the hotel was at the top of a long hill, so as we didn’t want to have to come down again later we went to the local Migros first to do our shopping and then did the climb, arriving at the Gyrenbad Hotel at around 6.15.

It was a nice hotel with comfortable beds and powerful showers. Meals were provided which were expensive but tasty as the torrential rain set in outside – we felt fortunate to have stayed dry all day, although thunderstorms were now forecast for tomorrow. Before we went to bed Tao and Joe washed their clothes in the bathroom, which made for an interesting video!

It was raining as we got up this morning, and the forecast was for it to continue raining all day. We did our best to ignore the weather outside as we enjoyed a provided breakfast of bread rolls, very nice smoked ham, Brie cheese and raspberry jam. We then took our time getting ready, looked at possible train alternatives in case the weather got really bad, then finally set off at around 10.30.

Having descended the hill back to Turbenthal, Joe decided to pay a visit to the local bike shop in order to buy himself a mudguard, as he was sick of getting plastered with mud on every cycle path, and sick of getting comments from Michael and Tao about his muddy coat! We lost our bearings a bit as we left the shop and did an unnecessary loop, but were soon back on Route 5.

It wasn’t a huge amount of fun riding all morning in the rain, and we couldn’t get the camcorder out to video the interesting places we passed, but it wasn’t too cold – around 16 degrees – so we plodded on and eventually reached Oberbüren, about twenty miles from the guest house, where some attractive Swiss cows were resting under a tree next to the Sonnenburg Horse Riding Centre. The rain had now just about stopped, which was better than we had expected, so we found a convenient bench by the River Thur and enjoyed our lunch there. Tao was not ashamed to tell us his sandwiches contained Pork Pate.

The afternoon ride was cloudy but thankfully dry. We continued along Route 5, following the river along forest tracks for a while, stopping at Riet to refill our water bottles from the delightful village fountain, and then riding through areas lined with fruit trees. At Steinebrunn we couldn’t fail to notice the cheese factory, which had a tower shaped and painted to look like an enormous block of cheese, complete with mouse. A little further along at Langrüt we saw our first ever robotic lawn mower, roaming around the garden doing its thing unattended.

We followed Route 5 right up to the Swiss border at Salmsach, then joined Route 2 heading south-east along the edge of the Ober Lake, which effectively forms the border with Germany. The route followed an electrically-powered railway line for several miles, and we guessed it might have been the overhead power lines that caused Tao’s speedo to start behaving very strangely while we were there.

There was a camp site at the end of the railway path at Buchhorn, and since they had a small shop we stopped to buy ice creams there. Next we rode along the shoreline at Abron Lake Park, and a little further along, after stopping at a tempting bakery, we had a chat with an old lady nearby. We reached Rorschach See hostel quite early, just after 5pm, and checked in at 5.15.

The hostel turned out to be really good – very modern, and with its own private swimming pool and water fun area between the hostel and the lake. Tao and Joe really wanted to enjoy these exceptional facilities, and since rain was forecast later they decided to go in first, before showering. The staff kindly turned on the pool and water slide for us, so we spent an enjoyable time swimming and using the slide. The temperature of the water was 20 degrees!
After showers we found out that the food was excellent too. The rain had now arrived, but we still decided to go for a short walk around the town, keeping to the covered walkways where possible. Some of the shops had Swiss Army knives on sale, but very few seemed to have any security on the windows. We presumed crime was virtually non-existent in Rorschach.

As we were going to bed we discovered Joe attaching stickers to his Nokia phone. He had apparently bought them from a “Girlie Vending Machine” for half a franc.

Rorschach See Youth Hostel was a very family-friendly establishment, with children running around everywhere this morning – and many of them were cyclists, which is always good to see. A baby was screaming in the adjacent room before we got up, which woke everyone except Tao apparently. Yet Tao did complain that Michael woke him up when quietly tiptoeing to the bathroom once during the night! Strange lad.

Breakfast was the usual fare we have come to expect at Swiss youth hostels, so perfectly adequate. Once again Tao was last to pack, but at least he admitted today that he is always last.

When we got out to the bike shed, Michael found a piece of cardboard attached to his Mercian bike with a note on it: “I may be old, but this bike is older – pension time perhaps? Stelvio”. Many comments sprang to mind. The Mercian was only 25 years old, so if that is older than the person who wrote it, they consider themselves old at 24? Clearly they assumed the bike was far older for some reason. Evidently, they recognised a quality, world-renowned frame when they saw it, which was a positive point. But the next question was, who is Stelvio? We thought it might have been the warden, so Michael marched off with the note to have it out with him. Sadly, there was a queue for reception, so he didn’t get chance to ask.

Weather started cloudy this morning as we set off along Route 2. When we got to Rheineck, just over five miles from the hostel, we found our familiar Route 2 and Route 9 signs pointing over a wooden footbridge that crossed the Alter Rhine river. The interesting thing about that was that the Alter Rhine is the boundary between Switzerland and Austria at this location, so Route 2 seemed to continue through Austria. Looking across the river we could see that cars on the other side seemed to have Austrian numberplates, so it really did look as though we would be going through another country on our journey today.

Cautiously we crossed the bridge, and sure enough we were immediately in Gassau, Austria, with no border checks or fanfares. The first things we saw were a café, that would have been great if it wasn’t so early in the day, and a Post Office, which looked totally different to the ones in Switzerland. The next thing we found was an ADEG convenience store, a chain we had never once seen in Switzerland. Just as we were thinking of going in to get some snacks, Joe realised he had left his coat and cover about 2km back along the path, so he set off to retrieve them while Tao and Michael contemplated using the café after all.

We soon hit our first problem. Austria uses a different currency to Switzerland - the Euro instead of the Swiss Franc – and we didn’t have any Euros. We confidently entered the ADEG store with our Swiss Francs and found that they would not accept them. Neither would they accept any kind of credit card except Maestro, and none of us had a Maestro card. We spent a considerable time looking around for somewhere to get some Euros, but there was nowhere.

Finally, we found another shop that only accepted Maestro cards again, but this one actually accepted Swiss Francs. And to add to our joy, they were very happy to give us change in Euros! We bought Austrian chocolate and drinks to celebrate our good fortune.

When Joe re-joined us, we continued along Route 2 which took us through coastal marshland known as the Rohrspitz nature reserve, in the middle of the Rhine delta. After a few miles we crossed back into Switzlerand, and once again there was no particularly obvious sign that we had done so.

We switched to Route 9 around here, which took us past the town of Au, so as it was lunchtime, we did a very small detour through the town and found a large and well-stocked Migros store for lunch. Outside we met an English chap, from Northamptonshire, who was now living in Switzerland. He welcomed us to the country.

We entered Altstätten through the industrial estates and were greeted with a very unusual work of modern art in the grounds of the company Sopel, which makes plastic bottles. Shaped like a tree, closer inspection revealed it was composed of twisted girders and rails, and even had a full-sized car on one of the branches. Joe declared it was his favourite sculpture ever.

We were soon riding along the cobbled main street of the town. Tao had been having problems with his wheel bearings, which seemed to have grit in them, so we looked for a bike shop and found Intersport which had a good stock of bicycle parts. Tao bought some bearings, Michael had some grease, so we headed out of the town until we found a quiet spot on the canal-side path near Sennwald. Here Tao settled down to regrease his front hub and fit the new bearings. Michael would have preferred to continue to the hostel and do the bearings there, but we didn’t really feel we were in any particular rush, and it was a nice place to stop for 45 minutes.

Continuing on along Route 9 to Frümsen we saw a sign to a cable car, and Joe had been longing to go on one ever since we arrived in Switzerland. It was only a very short detour to investigate. We found out it took people up to Staubern, a rocky mountain peak at 1860m that we had seen from the cycle route in the ridge of large mountains on our right. On arrival we found it was 25 Francs (£11) each return and only went every hour, and since it was already 17:23 we decided there just wouldn’t be time today. We promised to find Joe another cable car soon.

It was getting late now, and as we reached Werdenberg we encountered a nasty shower, just to slow us down a little more. After a garage stop for snacks, we quickly joined the cycle path at Buchs and followed it down the banks of the River Rhine itself, which here formed the border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein, a German-speaking microstate that is the fourth smallest country in Europe. Our hostel tonight was in Liechtenstein, on the other side of the river, and we had to ride several miles along the riverside path to find a crossing point to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein.

Michael had an idea the hostel was further down river, but a careful map check revealed we needed to cross here, at the wooden footbridge, to Vaduz. We crossed at 6.45 expecting to find clear signs to Schaan-Vaduz hostel, but there were no signs at all! We rode around in random directions hoping to find a sign, and eventually found our way by asking someone after a detour of four miles. We finally arrived at the hostel at 7.15, complaining to them about the lack of signs, although I’m not sure they were too concerned.

We were hungry of course by now and had been looking forward to a hot meal at the hostel, so the very last thing we wanted to hear from the warden was that we were too late to get a meal. Apparently, meals had to be ordered by 6pm and finished by 7.30. We had no choice but to go out again to a takeaway food place the warden told us about, and then bought some additional items from the Co-op at a nearby garage.

When we had eaten and showered, the hostel turned out to be quite nice, with lovely views. It even had TV and internet available for use by hostellers, although you had to pay to access the internet. Tao paid to go online so he could have a live chat with his partner back in England – he hoped she would be pleased to hear from him after he had gone to so much trouble!