Altdorf is where the legend of William Tell lives, and the town has the statue to prove it. In the main square, a bronze figure of the archer stands with his crossbow and his son, put up in the nineteenth century, and the whole place has a theatrical sense of being on a stage for a story that every Swiss child knows. Whether Tell existed or not, the tale of an apple, an arrow and a tyrant has become part of the way the country imagines itself.
For riders the town is more simply a convenient place at the foot of the Gotthard route. It lies on the flat floor of the Reuss valley, with steep mountain walls rising on both sides, and the lake of Lucerne a few minutes to the north. With nearly nine thousand people, Altdorf has fuel stations, supermarkets and plenty of cafes, and it is the last big town before the climb to Göschenen and the Gotthard, or the turn up to the Klausen and the Susten, so topping up here is sensible.
The valley is a funnel for traffic. The main road and the motorway run along it, and the railway is not far away, so the area hums with trucks and commuters. There is a calm side too: the old centre has a few lanes of painted houses, a Capuchin monastery from the sixteenth century, and quiet courtyards that tell of a more modest past. Not far away, in the village of Bürglen, there is a museum and chapel associated with Tell's legend, a gentle detour on a hot afternoon.
Lunch here is easy and unpretentious: a plate of rösti, a sausage, a coffee with a slice of cake. The weather is changeable, with sudden showers coming in off the lake or down the valley, and the Föhn can make the air very warm in autumn. If you are hurrying toward the passes, aim to start early; if you are coming down, the long afternoon shadows in the valley make for a restful end to the day.