After a short ride to the train station, wep grabbed a coffee and caught the train to Andermatt. It was a beautiful journey through the low valleys with their lakes and vineyards, which were planted on terraces running up the steep sides of the surrounding mountain slopes. As the trip progressed, the valleys narrowed and the river became swifter and the scenery more dramatic. It brought back memories of the Tyrolean slopes in the Swiss Italian alps. The Swiss villages retain many of their original dark heavy-timbered houses, many with the traditional red geraniums. Each village has at least one quaint church on a hill or in an historic-looking village square. Snow started to appear on the surrounding mountains, cowbells were twinkling and pink, purple, yellow, white and cream wildflowers shimmered across the green alpine meadows. We arrived in Andermatt at 4.30 pm, dropped our panniers at Hotel Badus ( comfortable but better dinners available down the road in town) and rode out to the Teufelbrucke - the devils bridge - a spectacular river ravine with an amazing bridge. (Rod there is a cycle path under the main road. We didn't see it till we were on the road in the tunnel. We did manage to get onto it but far better to get onto cycle path before roundabout.) We didn't stay long though because the temperature had dropped to about 10 and the wind was cutting right through us.
After a ride around town, we returned to our hotel for dinner and an enjoyable chat with some fellow British guests.
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