Biking Weekend

Our bikes lined up. Photo taken by my friend Somil

So last weekend I went biking with some other trainees around Lake Neuchâtel which is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. I was really excited for this weekend because cycling through beautiful scenery is not something which I can experience back home on a daily basis. My Maltese friend was also visiting and I was looking forward to meeting up with him for this trip.

Beautiful Swiss country side, photo taken by my friend Somil

We caught the train early in the morning to Murten, our meeting point, where we had our bikes waiting for us at the train station. Cycling towards the lake we paused to see the old ruins of a large Roman settlement called Avenches along the way before finally reaching the lake and stopping for some swimming. It was a really hot day and we were all sweating like crazy. There were also some really steep hills along the way which didn't really make our lives easier!



There were loads of people trying out wakeboarding at the place we stopped to swim but we ended up not managing to have a go because we soon had to move on and get to our hostel, which was further up along the lake in a village known as Yverdon-les-bain. I was dying by the time we reached the hostel and my bum was really sore from sitting on the seat all day, plus I was quite sun burnt too! There we helped cook dinner which was a variety of couscous, pasta salad, sausages and mashed potato and finally set down to relax.

Photo taken by my friend Somil

The next day we off again right after breakfast to conclude our journey to Neuchâtel where we would then catch the train back home to Zurich. Sitting down on the bicycle seat again was tough and rather painful but in general the cycling was much less intense than the day before. We passed some beautiful vineyards and wheat fields along the way, stopping occasionally to swim and have water breaks.

Photo taken by my friend Somil

As soon as we arrived at the station it suddenly got cloudy and started raining heavily, which was the cue for us to leave. We cycled a total of 100 km over two days which was definitely challenging for me personally, after almost 7 years of not riding a bike, but all in all it was a fantastic time. My friend Bartek managed to take this lovely video with his GoPro camera which sums up our trip beautifully.

The Swiss country side has many well defined cycling routes and its definitely worth checking out this website which offers more detailed routes to choose from based on your location http://goo.gl/YJIke8.

I also managed to outline roughly our cycling route using Google maps which you can see below.

À bientôt!