Beaut day for cycling. The weather was spot on. Scenery was exquisite. Three countries in one day!!!!!
We said our fond farewells to the nuns who did the hotel check out procedure at the reception desk and headed out along the lake, then across the isthmus to join up with the Rhine. I lot of people assume the Rhine starts at Bodensee (Lake Constance) but it actually starts up in the alpes in Switzerland, flows in and then out of Bodensee.
About five years ago did our first ever European bike ride around Bodensee which got us hooked on this biking gig.
We followed the Rhine for about 5k and then crossed the border into Lichtenstein via this great old bridge.
In the middle of the bridge was where we crossed from Switzerland into Lichtenstein.
The capital of Lichtenstein isVaduz and we would have to say it was pretty disappointing. We were hoping for cobble stoned streets with old stone buildings etc but it was a reinvented town. Guess they can afford it. The average wage is $137,000 courtesy of their rather lenient tax laws where the filthy rich deposit their money. The population is only 37,000 people and they are so archaic they didn’t give women the vote until 1984!!!!!!
You can also be king for a day.
There is a castle there and if you look on wiki there are some interesting facts regards how it became and principality. The current prince has a lot of political power and from what we have read is not shy in using it. Sounds like a bit of a rogue.
Rather boring picture but liked the logo of the country.
It was then back time to head into Austria. The principality of Lichtenstein is only 160m2 so as you can see it was pretty easy to bike across.
We are heading to a town called Feldkirch as we felt that 55k would be enough biking for one day – our penultimate day.
We have booked another business hotel and these are working out really well. They gave us the family room in this one and told us to take our bikes to our room for security, which we did.
Great sunny room to be able to do our last night of hand washing. Elfi and Horst sent us an email today saying their washing machine was in the start position just waiting for us – thank goodness!!!! Even with hand washing our clothes are about ready to walk off our backs.
As you can imagine, we are watching the Tour de France but it is all in German so missing some of the important stats. Will catch up in England when we are on the canal boat hopefully – and if we have signal. We are still getting into the swing of things though!!!
Eat your heart our Chris Froome – you have some stiff competition!!!
Rowkin Rovings Blog 