I stayed an extra night in Zurich to see some of the surrounds but had a tough time deciding what I could do in a day. The mountains beckoned since I wanted to do something kid-unfriendly while I was kid free, but it they were a fair distance away and the weather was going to be terrible. The weather also counted out a bunch of other stuff I was considering like going up Mt. Pilatus near Lucerne (there's a cool toboggan track there but I was a couple of weeks too early for it to be open, although the ropes course was open), and going paragliding. I eventually decided to do a mountain bike ride over the Renggpass near Hergiswil that
I saw on myswitzerland.com.
It sounded pretty cool:
Like an enormous wedge, the Lopper mountain chain separates the main basin of Lake Constance from Alpnachersee. Before the road and railway were cut into the vertical rock walls, Rengpass was the only link between Lucerne and Obwalden. Today, the pass has become one of the most popular bike loops of central Switzerland.
And looked amazing:
Unfortunately when I got to that point the view looked like this:
I downloaded the GPS track from the surprisingly helpful myswitzerland site, stuck it on maps and printed it out.
View Renggpass Ride, Hergiswil, Switzerland in a larger map
I reserved a bike from the
Swiss Rent-a-bike site, which is a fantastic service. You can rent a variety of bikes (anything from an electric bike to a full suspension mountain bike) at most major train stations in Switzerland. You reserve online then pick it up at the Luggage window at the train station (at Zurich HB this is on the outside of the terminal on the Mueuemstrasse side, follow the suitcase icons). The rental gets you free travel for the bike on all trains (you usually need to buy a discounted bike ticket), and you can even drop it off at a different train station. It was short notice (reserved the night before) so I had to settle for a hard-tail, but hey.
Lady at Zurich HB: "Not so nice day for biking."
Me: "Yeah, I'm going anyway"
I got the train from Zurich to Lucerne and got a stern talking to from a Swiss train conductor because I had my bike in the wrong place (they have a designated bike car for bikes and strollers on basically every train). Then another train to Hergiswil (bike in the right place this time). I was hoping for storage lockers at Hergiswil train station, but no such luck, so I lugged a change of clothes and other assorted crap like my kindle around the whole ride in my laptop bag, which was less than ideal...but "I'm going anyway".
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| Hergiswil station, Renggpass looming in the clouds off to the left |
Even with the printed map and some spotty phone GPS signal I had some trouble finding the trail and tramped around a few farms expecting to be yelled at by a Swiss farmer at any moment. Chickens, cows, and goats abounded. The view was great until I got into the clouds, and the road was super steep.
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| Is this really the path? It really was. That's someone's farmhouse on the left. I imagine this is the equivalent of an old 'right of way' in England. |
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| Goodbye visibility |
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| Aha! I'm going the right way |
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| Holy crapballs these rocks are slick, I really should have told someone where I was going... |
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| The last section would make a good black diamond ski run. No way I was riding down here. In fact I did rather a lot of pushing the bike around... |
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| The end of the ride. That red sign has a bike on it, which is interesting since it's in the middle of about 4 flights of stairs.... |
Afterwards I scraped most of the mud and sticks off my shoes in the toilet of a cafe full of old people having a glass of wine after visiting the Hergiswil glass works and changed back into my regular clothes. As I stepped in all sweaty and soaked from the rain they all looked at me like "who is
this guy"?
The glassworks is actually pretty cool, I did a quick trip through the museum before getting into the glass maze: a dark room with a disorienting lightshow and a maze made out of lots of glass panels. They give you gloves and slippers for your shoes to stop you leaving marks on the glass.
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| Hergiswil glass maze |
And on the way back through Lucerne I did a quick bike around a couple of sights before heading back to Zurich.
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| There was a giant crowd at the Lucerne train station which seemed to be the finish line for some sort of running race. |
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| Kapellbrücke (The Chapel Bridge), the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe |
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| The Löwendenkmal (The Lion Monument). Looked cooler than it sounded in the guidebook, but I had to fight my way through a busload of tourists to see it. |
Some hours later I discovered I'd brought back a little souvenir from the ride. My ankle was about the only thing exposed :( This got me nervous about
Lyme disease and other nasties. If you go into the woods in Switzerland you probably want repellent and if you're going to do it a lot, the TBEV vaccine. As a colleague of mine said: "Trust the Australian to find the only dangerous thing in Switzerland".
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| Tick buried in my ankle |
