The day started with completing the uphill assent into Versam. Not bad after we were well rested. After that we partially descended into Ruinaulta canyon , once again on a series of steep switchbacks and turns where we had to stop occasionally to let the brakes cool. We met a nice guy from the Czech Republic at our campground who said this area is called the “Grand Canyon of Switzerland”. I took pictures, but the flat images don’t do justice to the real thing.
After crossing a bridge over the gorge, we started another ascent back to the top of the canyon (have I mentioned that I’m eager for the terrain to level out?). The canyon wall was not as high on this side. We passed through several tunnels carved from the mountains and under several stone “ceilings” that were constructed over the road, apparently to keep the falling rocks from hitting the road. After going downhill into Bonaduz, our route left the main road onto smaller “roads” that we initially thought were bike paths… that is…. until we encountered cars. These “roads” are two-way, but only wide enough to accommodate one vehicle at a time. Someone has to pull to the side (which was more often us).
For most of the day, we found that we were not only following the river, but also the railroad, which was lucky because the railroad stations provide nice, clean, safe restrooms (or WCs as they are called here). We also discovered there are fresh water fountains continually running at regular intervals so we could fill our water bottles. We are getting the hang of things here.
As we descended down to river level, we crossed a bridge that spanned the place where two main branches, the Hinterrhein and the Vorderrhein (which we have been following), join to form the official Rhine River. After this bridge, we encountered one of the worst inclines of the trip so far, not because it was a high incline, but because it was a super steep incline into Tamins. We quit about 25m from the top, when we encountered one of the aforementioned fresh water fountains and decided to break. We pushed the bike up the rest of the way.
We continued on to the city of Chur, which was one of the largest population centers we’ve encountered on our trip (pop 35,000). Our route took us through the outskirts of the city to avoid traffic. As we were stopped at the far side of Chur, while Mark changed map files on the GPS, we were approached by a local who took great interest in our bike set-up. He has never owned a car and he has biked everywhere his whole life. He took a look at our route and gave us advice to avoid a very hilly route (much appreciated). His route took us to a gravel path along the banks of the Rhine. Although we have been “following” the Rhine (or one branch anyway) since the beginning of our trip, it has been more like crossing it here and there. This segment of the trip was the first time we actually rode along the river bank for an extended period of time.
We made it to the town of Bad Ragaz (I learned that “bad” is used the way we would use the word “spa”) where we planned to camp for the night. It is a charming town with spectacular mountain views. We stopped at the tourism information building, only to find out that they were closed for the day for “employee day”. We managed to corral one employee who came out to bring in some banners and he was kind enough to give us a map to find our campground.
It is a wonderful night at a wonderful campground. We have hot showers laundry and WI-FI. We took a walk back into town to have some fried chicken and chips at the national pub. It was a really good day.
