Where Lake Zurich narrows to a waist between Rapperswil and Hurden, a low peninsula runs out from the Schwyz shore, and at its tip, the Rosshorn, the remains of prehistoric lakeside villages lie beneath the shallow water. People lived here in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, in houses built on wooden piles, and they also built some of the earliest known bridges across the narrows. The site is one of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps that UNESCO listed in 2011, a group of sites that has given archaeologists a remarkably detailed view of everyday life thousands of years ago, preserved in the mud of lakes and moors.
The crossing here has been important ever since. In the Middle Ages, a wooden bridge carried pilgrims on their way to the monastery of Einsiedeln, and in 2001 a new wooden footbridge was built on the same line, running for about eight hundred metres across the water from Rapperswil to Hurden. Walking across it on a calm evening, with the lake turning gold and the mountains rising to the south, is a lovely way to end a ride. The Seedamm, the causeway that carries the road and railway between the two shores, runs alongside.
From Hurden, the obvious ride is up to the Etzel pass, a short, steep climb from Pfäffikon through meadows and forests, with tight bends and fine views back over the lake, before descending towards the Sihlsee and Einsiedeln, where the great baroque abbey and its Black Madonna have drawn pilgrims for a thousand years. The roads are narrow and busy at weekends, with cyclists, cars and tractors. The lakeside roads are pleasant but slow, with plenty of traffic and speed limits that are strictly enforced, as anywhere in Switzerland.
Hurden is a small village with a few restaurants, known for fish from the lake, while Rapperswil, just across the water, and Pfäffikon, a short ride away, have fuel and all the services you could need. Swiss motorways require a vignette, and speed cameras are common, with high fines. The weather is changeable, with fog on the lake in autumn and winter, and summer thunderstorms that can arrive quickly from the mountains. On a sunny day, though, the lake is at its best, with boats, swimmers and the view of the Glarus Alps in the distance.