Why you should travel Switzerland by bike

Are you sick of lengthy train jour­neys and end­less car rides, but still long for a change of scenery? Have you ever set your­self the goal of active­ly dis­cov­er­ing your home coun­try? I feel the same way. So with­out fur­ther ado, I decide to dis­cov­er Switzer­land by bike. Thanks to the many youth hos­tels in Switzer­land, the stages can be eas­i­ly divid­ed up and overnight stays can be arranged at attrac­tive prices – no fuss.  

For my mas­ter plan, I grab my bik­ing bud­dy Anja and togeth­er we set off from Buchs SG on our grav­el bikes. These sporty bikes are par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­able for longer dis­tances. They look like rac­ing bikes but the thick­er tyres allow cyclists to leave the hard asphalt and ride adven­tur­ous grav­el paths.

Off on an adventure!

And so our tour begins along the mag­nif­i­cent Rhine. We’ve com­mit­ted to 250 kilo­me­tres over the next three days. An excit­ing and var­ied route fol­low­ing the flow of the Rhine awaits us as far as Basel. After the riv­er flows into Lake Con­stance at the Rhine delta, we cycle along­side the lake and enjoy the cool turquoise-blue of the water. 

After 90 kilo­me­tres we reach Kreu­zlin­gen Youth Hos­tel. This hos­tel, rem­i­nis­cent of the past, is locat­ed direct­ly on the cycle path and the lake is just a stone’s throw away, too. Love­ly!

Refuelling

New day– new stage! Our des­ti­na­tion for today is Schaffhausen Youth Hos­tel. So we sad­dle up our bikes ear­ly in the morn­ing. We stow our lug­gage in spe­cial han­dle­bar, sad­dle and frame bags. A back­pack would make the tour far too bur­den­some. We only have the bare essen­tials with us and still want for noth­ing. We appre­ci­ate this light­ness.

For 58 kilo­me­tres we enjoy our pleas­ant cruis­ing speed and the lush green land­scape as it pass­es by. Every now and then we stop to fill our water bot­tles at a foun­tain. You should take every oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so, because you nev­er know when the next free water fill­ing sta­tion will come along. 😉 

Tired but hap­py, we arrive at Schaffhausen Youth Hos­tel around noon. We park our bikes in the bike room and explore the pic­turesque town. A high­light is the vis­it to one of the largest water­falls in Europe: the thun­der­ing Rhine Falls. Again we are over­whelmed by anoth­er day full of impres­sions.

Detours towards Basel

It’s crazy how quick­ly the last few days have passed us by. For­tu­nate­ly, the tour is not over yet! Today we set off ear­ly in the morn­ing towards Basel. We’ve got 158 kilo­me­tres to cov­er before the Rhine leaves Switzer­land. For me as some­one from the Grisons, this is a very spe­cial feel­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly as this mighty riv­er ris­es in my home can­ton. 

We didn’t need our smart­phones to guide us through­out the entire trip. Only once does it seem sus­pi­cious to us when the planes head­ing for Zurich are sud­den­ly fly­ing in the same direc­tion as we are sup­pos­ed­ly cycling towards Basel. We quick­ly notice our faux pas.

Don’t want it to end!

Despite the extra kilo­me­tres thanks to our lit­tle detour, we reach the hip city of Basel in the ear­ly after­noon. Next up is an explo­ration tour! Thanks to the ide­al loca­tion of the city youth hos­tel, we are right in the mid­dle of the action between restau­rants, bars and sights. We chill by the Rhine and think about our tour with a well-deserved aper­i­tif and lots of con­ver­sa­tion. Although we’ve cov­ered around 250 kilo­me­tres, we’re not real­ly exhaust­ed. How­ev­er, the fact that we are trained to sit on the sad­dle for longer peri­ods of time has cer­tain­ly helped us. And of course the indis­pens­able chamois cream. 😉 

The mix of ath­let­ic activ­i­ty, the speed of trav­el and the great scenery made this trip so spe­cial. Anoth­er Grav­el Bike Tour from youth hos­tel to youth hos­tel is already being planned and we are real­ly look­ing for­ward to it.