Switzerland is Beautiful

and expensive.

Our last night in Germany (Füssen), we treated ourselves to a hostel as the rain still hadn't let up. It felt like it had been raining for a long time. In reality it was two days of rain (but fairly continuous).

Weather forecast was for more rain so we decided to take some more trains to Zurich, Switzerland and to stay in another hostel.

We stopped in Shaffhausen and saw Europes largest waterfalls: The Rhine falls. Must be largest in volume as not high, but impressive width and volume of water. The sun was out- amazing how it lifts your mood.

That morning Byrdie said 'I'll leave you to sort out the accommodation', obviously getting sick of doing all the planning and organisation... However she just couldn't help herself. 'are you going to ask reception about youth hostels in Zurich?', 'here's a phone card and rough guide with hostel numbers' etc. If it was really left to me I would've just waited until we got to Zurich tourist office to sort it. I rang hostel and was told 40 franks each. gave credit card number. Once i hung up I then realised how much 40 swiss franks is. Our most expensive night so far!

Of course once we arrived in Zurich it was a clear, fine day. We considered camping instead. But the hostel would charge the credit card full amount if beds couldn't be sold to someone else. Plus the hostel was in a great, central location.

Arrived at hostel. Lugged bags up 2 flights of stairs. Bikes up one flight. Byrdie mentioned that camping was so much easier. Really the exorbitant price was bugging her = comfort eating of two large chocolate biscuits right before dinner.

To top it off we had a snorer. Impressively loud snores with whistles and snorts. Byrdie got up about 5 times to poke him (initially poking the wrong person and only realising when they looked right at her and snoring continued). So a rather sleepless night.

The next day was a scorcher. So of course we jumped right back into cycling. After buying expensive food, an expensive map and checking out of our expensive hostel we set out one of the national cycle routes. After one particularly steep, difficult climbe we stopped to admire the view over lake Zurich, mountains and vineyards.

Byrdie said how a good hill really blows off any frustration and that she had been tense that morning (really? Î hadn't noticed...). She said she felt like a coil unwinding (or something similar). I said I felt hot and sweaty.

We stayed at a campsite which was reasonably priced. It was beside a lake with views of mountain with snow dribbled on them. We fell asleep to the sound of cowbells.