21 September 2010
Lets begin with the end of the day as the author sits in the 'computer room' of a rather old and quaint hotel about 10 minutes walk from the centre of Bern, Switzerland.
Naturally, all but one of us had various versions of veal this evening in an outdoor restaurant near the centre of the City. The service was superb and the food excellent with friendly service.
From a language viewpoint, it has actually been difficult transitioning from French to German and somewhat of a surprise that in this area of Switzerland German is preferred over French.
But back now to the day that was.
This turned out to be a spectacular day indeed.
We departed Epernay at about 7.15 am in a clear but cold environment.
We ventured to the house of Moet Chandon for photos and spent 10 minutes chatting to a couple from Newcastle, NSW.
From there we wound our way out of Epernay proper to spend the next couple of hours on very quiet, undulating road through beautiful valleys, forests and villages.
Is there any better aroma than the small of fermenting, high quality champagne.
Breakfast was at a small bakery in a tiny town followed by a long upward pass through an amazing forest.
The scenery on both sides of the road down the valleys and up to the hills with the ever present champagne vines was breathtaking and we don't think we will ever get sick of riding through the quaint and quiet towns along the way.
Our ultimate destination today was Bern in Switzerland and this involved us making a TGV connection by a certain time.
It was getting a little tight for time meaning that for about 40 minutes we transitioned from wide eyed tourists to hard core cycling machines and hammered the road for the station. With some downward gradients, tail winds and speeds of 60 kph plus we made the station with minutes to spare. A quick rush to locate passports followed only to discover we had a station attendant who had less knowledge of out language than we had of his. Fortunately, he located an English speaking colleague and the deal was done.
It was then a rapid change of clothes, bikes and bags in the van and back to catch the train, which was now listed as being delayed by 30 minutes.
While most of us waited, Mick acted as navigator for Phil on an 8 hour drive to Bern.
Our first leg was to Strasbourg where we caught a connection to Basle for a further connection to Bern.
All went well at Strasbourg. Not so for Basle.
We were travelling along chatting, editing photos and generally solving the problems of the world. The train stopped at various stations so we didn't pay much attention on this particular stop until two rail staff started walking through the train collecting rubbish. We dutifully handed over our rubbish when Peter asked Phil H what station we were at - answer Basle.
Computer were packed and we were off rapidly along platform 2 trying to locate the platform for the Bern connection. When we did find the board for train schedules, it said 'Platform 9 at 4.27 pm'. It was now 4.24 pm
It was a run through a very busy station, up and down escalators only to hear the whistle sounding on Platform 7 for the departure and doors were closing.
Craig was leading the run and managed to put his arm in the door some 6 inches before it closed. Peter was next to arrive and between them the door was forced open and the rest of us piled in.
A very close call indeed.
One of the fascinating things as we moved towards Switzerland was the changing architecture. It is quite stark.
Bern is quite something. It has the longest trams and impressively, a huge bike commuter population.
The main commercial area is quite spectacular and very beautiful with its cobbled street and period buildings. It could be a movie set.
Be sure to join us tomorrow for a 136 km ride through the valleys of this region of Switzerland as we track the border South towards the Alps.
(again - spelling apologies - it is late and the spell check function is German)
