Andermatt Golf Course
At the last minute we decided to cancel our trip down to South Africa due to continued load-shedding and the impact that would have on us renting a home with no battery back up. So we decided to head back to Switzerland for October and enjoy the fall. I had seen an article in Cyclist magazine about a ride up to Madonna del Ghisallo from Lake Como and thought it would be a good ride to do sometime. link to an article on the ride The germ of an idea was born. PS we still need to do that ride!
The weather in Northern Italy was set fine so we drove up to Oberwald on Monday 10 October — and caught the train with our bikes across to Realp. It was too cold to head over the Furka pass, the up would have been okay but a long downhill would have been very chilly. from Realp we chanced upon a great XC (tarmac) ski trail and headed down (and up) that before meeting the road just above Hopintal by a bar we have stopped at in the past. The autumn colours were lovely.
Really enjoyed our ride down to Andermat past the golf course where the cows were very happy to act as greenstaff and munch down / fertisilse the rough. Much better than strimmers! Andermat was very quiet, mid week end of the tourist season so we picked up some picnic items and had a very nice meal in our room at the Hotel Drei Konige und Post.
Couple of Noddy moments:
- the panier rack we bought only fit 27″ tyres and ours are 29″. Lot of stress including a drive down the mountain in fog to get an alternative only to find the road was closed! Sleepless night on Saturday, only to discover that we had a spare full set up (rack and panier that fits) in one of our storage boxes which we had forgotten about!
- the rail tickets I purchased from Como back home on Trainline did not include bikes, and one could not add them at a later date. Old tickets non-refundable new tickets needed to be purchased after much tutting by the ticket officer.
- Left my spare cycle shirt in our bedroom at Andermat. Fortunatley they found it and I was able to pick it up on the way back just before they shut for the season.
Press play arrow to watch the video of our cycle
