Oben am jungen Rhein*

The good news is that I survived the night! All I have is a slightly bloody knee and a very bruised ego. In the light of a new day my bike, Joy, appears to be similarly unscathed, but she doesn’t have ego ☺️

The ride out of the city is easier and far less traffic-y than the ride in and before long we are riding along through flat, green countryside. We are still in a valley, and we still have mountains on both sides, but the mountains are lower with absolutely no sign of snow. I guess you would call them foothills if you were Swiss (because the Swiss know what real mountains look like).

We are riding close to the river, but the countryside is looking more like a wine region. And, that’s because it is! Today we are riding through the Bündner Herrschaft region. Its primary grape varieties are Pinot Noir and Müller-Thurgau (a white grape variety that even Neil has not heard of).

But don’t get excited about wine. We are riding heavy, hard-to-manoeuvre bikes (also known as barges), and a daytime tipple doesn’t work well with navigating these barges safely to our destination. We tend to partake our vino at night, when the bikes are safely away and we are on our feet.

It is Saturday today and the Swiss are out in force; there are bike riders everywhere. There are two types of bike riders: skinny recreational cyclists wearing lycra and riding road bikes, and the other people riding eBikes. Then of course there is us – we fit into neither category, with our manual, or “bio” bikes. Once upon a time a bike was a bike. Then along came eBikes, so we had bikes and eBikes. Now it seems eBikes are the norm and we have to find a new name for our tradional, unpowered versions!

We are making great progress when we suddenly come to a halt.

We ignore the barriers at first, and ride on, but soon come to another barrier, where a couple of gents are sitting. One greets us with a barrage of German, but then, of course, switches to English the minute we look baffled.

”You cannot pass through here today. There is a wine tasting event and the road is closed.”

What?

We can pay a CHF20 entry fee, plus CHF10 for a glass, each. We have a pact to not convert CHF to AUD in our heads while travelling here, because it is a disappointing exercise, but in this case we both do the maths in our head and decline the opportunity. About $110 to ride along a short stretch of road, with the bonus of tasting wine and falling off our bikes in the midday heat? Perhaps not.

Luckily there is a shortcut, but that shortcut involves a fairly steep climb through a village. We can see the stretch of road that is blocked off, and it looks like it would be a fun event for locals or those not in charge of heavy bikes. If you are ever passing through it is called WeinPromenade and happens in the village of Malanser.

A short while later, after we are done with climbing, we stop at a Gasthof at the top of a hill to have lunch. And no, we don’t indulge in a wine, just a simple cheese sandwich and some poorly selected drinks. I ordered an apfelspunsch, and Neil ordered an orangenpunsch, both of us thinking light, refresing, cold.

Nup! These are piping hot drinks, served in tall glass mugs, and spiced like a mulled wine. Once cooled, they were really quite nice. But them be the surprises of travelling where you don’t know the language well, nor the customs, nor the food/drink.

From our lunch point we zoom downhill and meet up again with the river, riding along a flat levee (Rheindamm). We are riding down the left back on the Rhein, and Liechtenstein is on the right bank, with the country border running right down the middle. Not long after that we cross a cycle bridge, and we are now in Liechtenstein.

We both have vague (but separate) memories of being in Liechtenstein. I remember stopping here on a road trip back in the 80s, but have no real other memory. We are spending the night in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, but I doubt any real memories will kindle. (I reckon I have a photo, somewhere, that I took back then, but it could be old and yellow with tatty corners now, being so old.)

We continue riding along a levee. It’s quite hot and I am seriously looking forward to arriving. The road atop the levee is quite narrow and we play dodge-em again with an Audi, who barrels through as if the owner of the road. (Can I point out the lovely BMW driver who politely waits for us to get out of her way before proceeding?) It does turn out that we should be riding down below the levee next to the river, but the turn onto that path was not obvious. There are other cyclists up on the top of the levee as well. It looks as if the people of Liechtenstein only drive expensive cars – Audis, BMWs, Mercs, etc.

Our hotel is a welcome sight and we go straight to the cafe for cold drinks before doing anything. Once tidied up we walk into the town centre and find a music festival is underway. There’s a large marquee installed, with a band playing a kind of ooom-pah-pah song. Inside the tent people are laughing, singing and drinking beer, while wiping the sweat off. It is like a sauna. We consider doing end-of-day beer amongst the celebrations, but instead choose a terrace bar/restaurant nearby, where beer turns into dinner and the music plays on.

We learn many things about Liechtenstein:

• The population is only about 41,000 – the entire country!
• It is a wealthy country, with one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, fueled by an export- oriented manufacturing industry and a robust financial services industry.
• There are more jobs than people in the country – people from nearby Switzerland, Austria and Germany commute here daily to work.
• The national anthem is set to the same music as “God Save the King/Queen.” It was played in the music festival tent, with robust singing, and we figured it was not English words so looked it up. Mind you, the crowd in the tent was equally enthusiastic in singing “Living on a Prayer!”
• Liechtenstein operates politically as a constitutional hereditary monarchy where political power is balanced between the reigning monarch (who is a Prince), the parliament, and direct citizen referendums. We may have see the reigning prince this evening. A group of people exited from what we think is the Rathaus (town hall), posed for a lot of photos and then went into the festival tent. They just looked “important” and were dressed in what looked to be some kind of uniform.

* Up by the young Rhine (The Liechtenstein national anthem.)

Stats for today:

• Distance: 44.26km
• Climb: 234m
• Average speed: 15.8km/h
• Average temperature: 32C
• Moving time: 2:47:38
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at a patio/bar restaurant within earshot of an oom-pa-pa music festival. And because the beer shot was so bad, there is a bonus wine shot, with a view of the Schloss Vaduz, the Prince’s palace.

Along the way today:

Click on an image to scroll through the gallery at full size.