The Journey Home - Basal Switzerland to London England to Vancouver

October 24th we decided to travel from Bern to Basal stopping in Soloturn/Selzach along the way to pick up our bicycles. This turned out to be a very good idea as we had to catch the train at 7:02am in Basal in order to make it to England by the end of the day on the 25th. We landed in Dover via the ferry from Calais, France shortly after 9:00pm, what a day! We had to take 4 trains through France including a 2 hour stop in Paris where we had to walk to a different station.

Dover was beautiful with it's white cliffs and humble castle. I wished we could have stayed there longer. The guest house we stayed at was uncommonly well priced and the beds were the most comfortable we have slept in since I don't know when since they were better than our own at home. We even had a breakfast of cooked eggs bacon and sausage, which I missed dearly.



From there we made our way to London where we eventually found our hostel just outside of Greenwich in the community of Depfort (Ghetto). The hostel was nothing short of hilarious even if we were slightly upset and disgruntled when we arrived. It was actually more of a bar with some rooms above it. What a joke, if you want to party it was fine but that wasn't our aim we just wanted to be comfortable. In any case, we stayed because it would have been too time consuming to move. There was a cool church nearby where pirates got the idea for the skull and crossbones (apparently) and also where Peter the Great is buried.



Staying in Deptford turned out to be a classing in disguise. Around the corner in perhaps the oldest building in London, having survived The Great Fire, I discovered the last custom lugged steel frame building left in London, Witcomb cycles. Yes the place where Richard Sachs and Peter Weigle learned their trade. Barry Witcomb even chatted with me for a bit telling me some of the history. They are getting some more business again, especially with the fixed gear popularity. I was overjoyed and I even got an oversized bike box from them that allowed me to box my 62cm bike without removing the rear wheel!



We didn't see or do to much in London. We went to the Royal Observatory which lies on the Prime Meridian and they have a green laser (or something) so you can physically see it! Good thing we went at night. It made for a better picture. Greenwich strikes me as being very similar in demographic to Main Street Vancouver. We also visited the West end of London where we saw Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus and that's about it.



I also met up with a friend from Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario) and we went out for a few pints and reminisced about our undergraduate days. The next day i was back to Vancouver. Goodbye Europe/UK.

Switzerland

We have now been in Switzerland for over 10 days. It has been a whirlwind of activity and we have not had a chance to update. We arrived in Zurich on the 11th and spent 3 days there walking around the city taking a boat down Lake Zurich and visiting a friend of Valley's Dad who he met when she was visiting Canada. She made us a traditional Swiss meal of boiled potatoes, Raqulette cheese, pork and pickled onion, baby corn and pickles.



From there we headed to Solothurn/Selzach where Valley's father's Mother's Side of the family lives. This includes the town butcher and Mayor of Selzach, we met too many people to go into detail but they are very hospitable. It is common for 3 generations to live in one very large house here and the families are very large.
The first day we went up the local mountain in Selzach and had a meal at over 1000m altitude. I rode up with one of valley'y cousins on a borrowed mountain bike. The next day we saw the oldest boroque city in switzerland (soloturn). We were lucky enough to stay at a relative's house for two nights before heading to the Interlaken Region.

Soloturn



Selzach



We arrived at the hotel Lindenhof in Brienz after a quick drink in the famous mountain town of Grindelwald overlooking the mountain Jungfrau (taller than the highest peak in the Rockies). Brienz was the highlight of the trip.

Grindelwald


Brienz



The hotel Lindenhof is owned by Valley's Dad's cousin Kristian Fotsch and we were treated extremely well. Besides the first class accomodations we went up the Rothorn Bahn (little steam engine up Rothorn Mountain to over 3000m). It was incredible. We also went to the town of Meiringen where Valley's father was born and saw a very amaying rock canyon, and ruins below the local church which were 1000 years old. There was also a castle built between the 13th and 14th century which no longer had any internals but had a staircase to the top.

Rothorn




Hike



Klaus`s First Home



Meiringen





Valley's family was very friendly and we learned a lot about the Fotsch family history. Kristain lives in Brienz with his wife Ursi and two daughters Chantel and Fabian. I think we convinced Chantel to visit Canada next year.

After leaving Brienz we visited a former resident of Pemberton BC now residing in Switzerland. He took us on a tour of Gstaad and the surrounding area. He is a long time friend of Valley's dad and is now running a limo service for the rich and famous who all own chalet's in Gstaad, amoung other things. So we have learned and seen a lot more about Switzerland than any other country we have been too. We are currently in Bern for a few days before making our way to England.

Bern

Basal

Como

We rode from Milan to Como and decided to stay in the city hostel. The lake region is very beautiful and we spent the evening just hanging out and enjoying some modestly priced booze. The next day we did a small day trip circumnavigating the south western arm of lake como, that was an absolutley wonderful experience and we even spent some time on the beach and I (Anthony) went for a swim although the rocks were difficult to walk over and the water was quite cold.




Como has a rich history like most places in Italy and a very very impressive cathedral as well. The variety of marble on the inside is breathtaking. We spent the morning of the 11th walking around the old town before we caught the train through the Alps to Zürich. The mountain villages were unlike anything we have ever seen. I got my one souviner from Italy which was a leather belt made from bull hide in Italy.

Milano

I don't have to much to say about Milan. There is lots of shopping of course. It's a cloud of diesel and 2-stroke exhaust. We are camped about 12kms outside the city because we consider hostels expensive, I mean $30 CND for a dorm bed!? when we are budgeting $50 a day... not good. Anyway, we did some shopping and went to the Leonardo De Vinci Museum of Science and Technology as well as the Museum of Milan. Today we are in an internet Cafe which was hard to find because the tourist information person marked the wrong spot on our map. That reminds me, in Vicenza the one campground which we were directed to and still existed on the Tourist office map, no longer existed and we wasted a lot of time looking for it. ARRGG!!!

Food and drink is ridiculously expensive. The Duomo Cathedral in the city center is pretty impressive but I though the Dom in Koln was more so. We are going to the Vigorelli Velodrome after this, lets hope it and some of it's shops (MASI??) are open. Things seem to be closed on Mondays.

Verona

I forgot to mention in the last post that one of our favorite experiences in Italy was the day we left Venice we stopped at a rural restaurant and got a meal that consisted of homemade spaghetti with bread (we thought this was the meal) and then sausage and ribs with salad, we each has a beer and after we paid 30 euro for the 25 euro meal they gave us each a shot of melon vodka. This was the best meal we ate in Italy and the cheapest and they didn't speak a word of English. We gave them a Canada pin. The day got better as we came upon an outdoor market of antiques and other used goods. I found a vendor of vintage bike parts with loads of hubs from the 50s and 60s and 2 Campagnolo Cambio Corsa set ups, magistroni cranks and a frame to go with it all. I ended up buying a NOS Regina Oro Chain.

Anyway Verona is incredible. The city has lots of Roman bits in pieces including the central arena (or what's left of it) and an ancient city wall, we even saw the remains of the ancient city gate's towers, the main part of the building is now occupied by shops and businesses. The view from our campsite was like that from a hotel as we were situated on top of part of the ancient city wall to the east of the city. Imagine we are paying to get into old castles and stuff and now we are sleeping on a fortified wall that is well over 1000 years old! I can't say enough about how great Verona is.





Italy has been the most unpleasant place to ride in as our routes have not followed rivers or other bike paths. We cannot find any maps of cycle routes and there doesn't appear to be a good network anyway. The rural folks are very friendly, but in a city like Milan people ween very rude. Maybe it just seems that way because we are Canadian.

Venice

We arrived in Venice in the early morning and made our way to out campground which deceived us and we ended up in house tents which were damp and moldy, besides that it was not that bad, but the internet site gave us the impression we were booking a room not a tent. Ridiculous. Anyway Venice was very cool and insanely expensive. We just spent the day walking around and taking it in. The Piazza San Marco was very impressive.





As I write we are sitting in Verona near the ancient arena. But that is for the next blog. We spent a few days on the road including two night in farmer's fields. There are no camp grounds here! It's also very hot, over 25 Celcius in the heat of the day but I love it. Vicenza was our midway point from Venice to Verona and it was nice, but other factors causes us not to have a great time there. However, in the end I did get a picture of myself outside the Campagnolo factory, something I had to do before I left Vicenza.

Auf Wiedersehen Germany

Our day of riding up the Nekar River from Heidelberg was one of the best days we have had. The riding was great and the scenery was amazing. At the end of the day we looked at the industrial landscape that lay ahead of us on the map and decided to take the train to Munich and then to Venice, Italy.




Much to our suprise Octoberfest was in full swing in Munich and we had to stay and a very dirty, very wet and very crowded campground as all the hostles were full. There was garbage and abandoned tents everywhere. It was insanity. Munich was nice but not our favorite place. We went up a bell tower which was cool and we ate at the Pauliner brew house, which was very good.