Switzerland - Beautiful nature and a lot of rain

My first full day through Switzerland should be weather-wise the most beautiful of my complete route through Switzerland. Fortunately, I did not know that beforehand!

I went from Lugano in bright sunshine through forests and over smaller mountains to Bellinzona. I enjoyed beautiful views of Lake Lugano and the snow-covered mountains.

View at Lake Lugano

In Bellinzona I was picked up by David, a friend I had met in Namibia last year, as he had offered me to spend the night at his place.

The next morning it rained. I decided to hike a stage anyway and got as far as Biasca before I got so cold that I returned to David by bus and paused the next day in persistent rain.

Due to the snowfall in the mountains, my last hope that I would reach the other side of the Alps via some pass road was gone and so David drove me by car to Göschenen the next day and I continued my route there.

And this decision should also turn out to be right, because afterwards I had no more day without not at least light rain. Two times it even hailed, but fortunately not long and quite small hailstones.

Trip to Bellinzona on a day off

The first part to Göschenen, I had to partly switch to the road, because in winter the bridges on the hiking trail are removed. Afterwards, however, the hiking trails were passable again.

Along the Reuss River, a relaxed path led me to Lake Lucerne, where I then pitched my tent in the evening on a camping site.

Most of this day I even had sunshine and a fantastic view of the snow-covered mountains, from which I now moved away again.

Lake Lucerne - dreamlike even in the rain

The next day I followed a nice path along the lake and hiked through Schwyz and Haggenegg to Einsiedeln, where I found another campsite on the opposite side of the Sihlsee.

The day started and ended with rain, but I was halfway dry and sometimes that's enough to be happy...

Sometimes the rain catches up with you again...

From Einsiedeln I went across Lake Zurich to Rüti. In the evening I met up with a friend in Rapperswill, whom I hadn't seen for years and we had a super nice time with excellent food.

I still don't know how I made it, but a day and a half later I was actually standing in Konstanz.

Shortly after Rüti I had another wonderful encounter with Katharina and Christoph. She has been hiking the E1 in stages for a couple of years on her vacation and he wants to do the E1 this year by bike.

Rare enough that I even meet people who know the E1, so two at a time has been a crazy as well as wonderful and Christoph invited us to a cup of tea into the warm house.

After a nice chat, Katharina and I set off again in opposite directions, but not before we had all exchanged contacts.

It may have been the anticipation of the border, but both my legs and my head would not stop. Eventually I did get tired in the evening and I rang the bell at a house off the road to ask if I could spend the night there next to the property. It was no problem at all and so my night camp was secured and I could leave early the next morning to cover the last kilometers to the German border.

No visit to Switzerland without Toblerone

Thus, I had also left Switzerland after a little more than a week, but would definitely like to come back to hike the route over the Gotthard. But hopefully next time with less rain!