Lichtenstein!

“You need to go there. Very big campingplatz. Ve are full” said the very Germanic and bare chested campsite owner. This was after having sat for an hour in the heat waiting for the tiny campsite in Buchs to open. He wrote down the name of this campsite but gave no indication of how far it was. So I trudged back to a waiting Sian to give her the bad news, and we clipped our bags back onto the bikes which were hidden round the corner and started our march of shame past the reception area, both of us with a somewhat fatigued and down hearted look.

His face suddenly changed. “You only haf tents? Now zat is completely different. Ha! you can find any empty spot unt camp zere!”. So we didn't end up in Lichtenstein, and therefore can’t add that country to our list. Lesson learnt - make sure the campsite owner doesn’t think you own some form of mobile camping behemoth, of which there are loads around.


Our journey up till then involved a bit of hill climbing, and something we hadn’t associated Switzerland with: horse flies. These nasty little creatures were clearly just waiting for a juicy meal, and if you ever wanted some reason to cycle a bit faster, these blood suckers provided it. I’m not going to bore you with photo after photo of gorgeous scenery, but maybe just one. Or two..

The campsite was tiny, and the tent area was right in the middle, as if we were coralled by the surrounding more permanent caravans and winnebago’s. As ever, we provided significant amusement for the locals who happily sat there drinking their white wine as we sorted our stuff out. There was nothing special about the place, but one very noisy reason we wouldn’t want to stay another night- the local church as it turns out.

The Swiss do like their bells, and this church belted out every hour, every quarter hour. This, it did, right throughout the night. And then, just to really annoy you, at 6 it went into overdrive with a 5 minute extravaganza of bell ringing, just to make sure if you weren’t already awake, you certainly would be at the end of that. I’m guessing the Swiss are accustomed to it, presumably because all their cows have bells attached as well.

So to end today, I start with the beginning of the day. Action man ( see previous post) came to life in the morning, and he turned out to be a really friendly fellow, who was heavily into his mountain bikes. This is why he had two - one for just pure descending at presumably some crazy rate, and the other for both ascending and descending. Both looked very high spec, but alarmingly he also showed me what I can only call a modern day suit of armour that he wore for his high speed descents.




His helmet, complete with neck brace and the body armour.
Hot croissant joy from a local store, plus alpine fresh water
Always like a nice tree for a bit of perspective. No photoshopping here, I promise

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