Markelfingen-Germany- Schaffhausen-Switzerland-8-23-14

 

Welcome to Switzerland. We left Germany this morning from Lake of Konstanz and rode around the shore into Switzerland. We had no idea when we crossed into Switzerland possibly at Stein am Rhein

The EV 6 was well marked and it was quite easy bicycling until after Moos when we encountered quite a few hills. The route was hilly most the day after Moos; some of the hills we had to push because they were too steep. Other cyclists also pushed up these hills. There were quite a few people on electric bikes.

The highlight of the day is Stein am Rhine. It is a beautiful small town with a stone gate entrance at both ends. All of the buildings inside the town were painted with elaborate murals as if looking up at the Sistine Chapel. It was almost too much to take in.

The next town was of Diessenhofen had a covered bridge. The covered bridge was like one you might see in northeastern United States. Flowers bedecked the little peepholes. In the background was church and steeples and half timber framed houses. One could cross the bridge and enjoy a tour through the town, but as always, we needed to press on to get a certain mileage.

 

The gravel we encountered was extremely rough and totally unexpected for Switzerland. The hills were way too steep for touring cyclists.

Schaffhausen was a much bigger town but still with the lovely Swiss character. We rode through the center, actually in search of the visitor center to find out about camping. As it was Saturday, it had already closed at 3 pm. But the grocery store was still open so we got supplies for the weekend as everything is closed all day on Sundays. When we got to the counter, they required Swiss Franks instead of Euro. So we had to go find an ATM and get Franks for the little bit of travel we would do in Switzerland.

Luckily, upon asking several people about camping, a young couple pointed us to the Schaffhausen Campground 2 kilometers back up river on the other side. It was a lovely spot right on the river. They had a tiny kiosk which served delicious pizza. The only real problem we had was that our European plug adapter did not fit their plugs so we had no power to charge the GPS or computer. We shall have to see if this will be the problem in Switzerland in which case we will have to buy another adapter.

It rained hard again throughout the evening, but morning brought a clear sky and hopes for a beautiful cycling day. But, beware of too much fantasy and optimism!