Crossing the Alps

Starting in Interlaken, the first kilometers led along the river of Aare and then along the southeast shore of the lake of Brienz (Aare-Route and Seen-Route), partly asphalt road and partly gravel path, but good to ride with my touring bike. At the lake the route already showed the first rising stages.
Shortly before leaving the lake of Brienz, the route passeed directly the Grießbach waterfalls, a cascade of several waterfalls one above the other. You can walk behind one of the cascades, very impressive! Close to the waterfall, the path led up a couple of stairs. I had to remove the bags and carry the bike and the bags one after the other up the stairs. After leaving the lake of Brienz the route lead to Meiringen, where the Grimsel road begins. Again the river of Aare accompanies the road (Aare-Route).
Close to Meiringen the next highlight: the Aare-Canyon! Don’t miss to visit it, absolutely beautiful! It took me about 30 minutes to walk from the east entrance to the other end of the canyon (west entrance). There you can take a train back, but I decided to walk back. At all I was back to my bike after a bit more than one hour.
I arrived at Guttannen in the early afternoon, a little bit to early for the hotel. Very nice: there is a little 24h/7days village store in Guttannen, no staff but self-service, you take all goods by yourself, weigh it, scan it, pay with card, you can even brew a coffee at the coffee machine.

To find the way is very easy, just further following the Grimsel road upwards. The road passes some tunnels, some you have to ride through, what I found very unpleasant, but there were also some with a bypass for cyclists. But pay attention even at the bypass! I was a bit surprised by suddenly hearing a horn from behind and being overhauled by two Postbusses.
A sightseeing point: the Gelmerbahn, a cablecar with a slope of more than 100% (I didn’t ride it). Next to it the Handeckfallbrücke, a suspension bridge 70 meters above the Aare river (no fee). Then, after a few kilometers, the Räterichsbodensee and the Grimselsee, which is the water reservoir for a powerstation and where at the moment a new dam wall is built, the „Staumauer Spitallamm“. You can visit the construction site, but book the tickets before. You find information for all this here: https://www.grimselwelt.ch/ At the Grimsel pass you find restaurants and hotels to have a break or to stay, what I did.

To my mind the most beautiful part of the tour! From Grimsel pass the Furka road with many serpentines goes down for 6 km to the village of Gletsch. I had wonderful views to the surrounding mountains and I couldn’t help but I had to stop to take pictures about every 200 m. My breaks nearly overheated by this. Gletsch has a small train station and a historic steam train line, but no steam engine was around when I passed by.
From Gletsch the Furka road rises for about 10 km to the Furka pass. After about 7 km you reach the ancient Grand Hotel Belvédère in a narrow turning of the road (a site which had been part of a James Bond movie). The hotel is closed since a couple of years, but vis-à-vis there is a little kiosk and the entrance to the Rhone glacier with its glacial lake and a man-made ice-cave. In former times the cave was part of the glacier and began next to the road. Now you have to walk several hundred meters (entrance fee: something about 10 CHF). The ice-cave is at the end of its life and no „must-see“, but the view to the glacier and the lake is nice and you don’t see both from the road.
The Furka pass, the highest point of my whole tour, then is reached fast. There you find no kiosk or restaurant, I only stopped for the mandatory „peak picture“ and to put on warm clothes for the descent. 12 km down to the village of Realp, the road in a rather bad condition, and another 8 km via Hospental to Andermatt, where I stopped for lunch.
From Andermatt 3 km back to Hospental. There, in the roundabout, the 10 km rise of the Gotthard road begins. After 6 km cyclists have to turn to the old Gotthard road, which is a paved road. With my touring bike it was okay, with a racing bicycle it would have been more uncomfortable, but nevertheless I saw a lot of cyclists with racing bikes there. The Gotthard pass again has „infrastructure“ to have a break, like several kiosks and restaurants.
The paved road continued for the most part down to Airolo. Paving stone, numberless steep and very narrow serpentines: the descent was very tiring. But the great nature and beautiful views to the mountains outweighed all. Again my breaks overheated by all the stops I had to execute to take pictures!

Although most of the day the road was descending, it was a tiring day. Heat of about 35°C, a narrow valley with a lot of noise pollution by the highway or industrial areas, after the beautiful days in the mountains this was a little bit a pain. Nevertheless some scenes at the Ticino river were picturesque. I stopped in Bellinzona for lunch, a nice little town with a fortress. After Bellinzona a rise had to be made for a coupla of kilometers at a four-lane highway with a special lane for bikes at the side. But despite the bike lane, I had to ride directly beneath cars that go by with 80 or 100 km/h. I was very glad, when I had done this part of the route!
At about 5 o’clock in the afternoon I arrived in Agno at the lake of Lugano, tired, but very proud! I had finished my challenge of crossing the alps by bike!