Grand Tour of Switzerland: Andermatt to Montreux

Andermatt to Montreux, over 2429 m · back a different way, via Valais Wine Road

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Why this ride

A 241 km one-way ride from near Andermatt, about 3 h 55 of riding. On the way it passes Furka Pass and Tasch for Zermatt. The highest point is about 2,650 m. Furka Pass is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.

Roadbook

1. Andermatt start

   Andermatt sits at 1,444 metres in the Urseren valley, a high, wide, treeless hollow in the heart of the Swiss Alps, and it has been a crossroads for centuries. Three great passes meet here: the Gotthard, which runs south to Italy and Ticino at 2,106 metres, the Furka, which climbs west over 2,429 metres toward the Valais, and the Oberalp, which leads east at 2,044 metres into Graubünden. For a motorcyclist it is a kind of Mecca, since the three roads are among the most famous in the Alps, and the town fills with bikes on any fine summer weekend.

   The history is dramatic. North of the town, the Schöllenen gorge is a narrow, steep cut in the granite, and the Devil's Bridge, which crosses the roaring Reuss river, has been a symbol of the Gotthard route since the thirteenth century, when a first bridge opened the pass to trade. In 1799 a Russian army under General Suvorov fought its way through the gorge against the French, an episode remembered with a huge monument carved into the rock. The Swiss army also used the area as a fortress, with tunnels and artillery positions hidden in the mountains. Today, a base tunnel of 57 kilometres runs beneath the Gotthard for trains, the longest railway tunnel in the world, and most traffic passes below the mountain.

   The old Gotthard road, the Tremola, is the part many riders remember: a cobbled road of tight hairpins zigzagging up the south side from Airolo, closed to heavy traffic and thrilling in dry weather. The passes are closed by snow in winter, usually from late autumn until around June, so check before you go. In summer, traffic and weather can change quickly, with fog on the passes and thunderstorms in the afternoon. A Swiss motorway vignette is needed for the motorways.

   Andermatt itself is a modest village with a few hotels, cafes and shops, recently expanded by a large resort development and linked to a ski area. It has a fuel station, though prices are higher than in the lowlands. Try the Älplermagronen, a dish of macaroni, potatoes, cheese and onions with apple sauce, or a hearty rösti after a long day of hairpins. Early mornings are best, before the crowds, when the light on the peaks is golden and the air smells of cut grass.

2. Furka Pass scenic · 2429 m

   Furka is one of the Alps' great stage roads: 2,429 metres of switchbacks linking Uri and Valais, with the Rhône Glacier at the western foot. From Andermatt the road climbs through the high Urseren valley, past Realp, up a series of hairpins to a pass where the air is thin and cold, and the views unfold across rock, snow and sky. The mountains here are bare and grand, and the sense of altitude is real.

   The glacier is the star. The Rhône starts here as a meltwater stream under the ice, and until recent decades the glacier tongue reached down almost to the road at Gletsch. It has retreated sharply and now sits high on the slope, with an ice grotto cut into it each summer. The old Hotel Belvédère, a grand building from the days of the stagecoach, stands at a bend and became famous when it appeared in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, in which Bond's Aston Martin raced the Furka's bends.

   Riding it is a pleasure and a test. Bends are tight and well engineered, the tarmac is generally good, and the traffic can be heavy on summer weekends, with buses, cars and motorbikes sharing hairpins. Go early or late for the best light and emptier road. Weather matters: cold mornings, sudden fog or snow even in summer, and rain on the Valais side. The pass is closed in winter and typically reopens in late spring, though dates vary with snowfall, so check before planning.

   Andermatt, about fifteen kilometres east, and Airolo, a similar distance to the south through the Gotthard side, are the closest fuel stops, so fill up beforehand. Mountain restaurants at the summit serve coffee, soup and apple pie, and the cold means you will want them. Wear a warm layer under your jacket and keep a visor-cleaning cloth handy.

3. Tasch for Zermatt scenic

   Täsch is a place most people pass through on the way to somewhere more famous, and it has made peace with that. Zermatt, a few kilometres up the valley, is closed to private cars, so the road ends here, at a large terminal beside the railway, where visitors leave their vehicles and ride the shuttle train for around twelve minutes to the village under the Matterhorn. For a motorcyclist the arrangement is simple. Park at the terminal, change out of the leathers, and take the train in.

   The drive up the Mattertal is rewarding in itself. From the Rhône valley at Visp the road follows the Vispa river upstream, narrow and steep sided, through tunnels and past avalanche galleries, with the rail line wrapping around you. At Randa the cliffs show scars of the rockfall in 1991, when millions of cubic metres of mountain collapsed across the valley floor, and a long suspension footbridge, said to be among the longest in the world, crosses the gorge nearby. Surfaces are good, but the road is narrow, and tour buses and delivery vans share it, so take your time and leave early.

   The mountain is the star. The Matterhorn rises to 4,478 metres, a pyramid of dark rock that looks almost too perfect to be real, and it was first climbed in 1865 by Edward Whymper and his party, four of whom died on the way down when a rope broke. The tragedy shocked Victorian Britain, and made the peak more famous. It still holds the imagination, especially at dawn when the first light turns the summit pink.

   Before you head up the valley, fill the tank down the valley in or near Visp, because fuel supplies in the narrow upper valley are limited and expensive. Täsch has plenty of parking and some restaurants and shops, though most people spend their nights in Zermatt. The roads here are fully usable in summer and mostly clear in winter, but heavy snow can close the valley, so check reports. Autumn gives clear air, golden larch woods and fewer visitors.

4. Montreux finish

   Montreux is the Swiss Riviera in its most polished form, a ribbon of hotels, gardens and promenades stacked up the steep north shore of Lake Geneva, with the French Alps standing on the far side of the water like a stage set. The slopes behind are so sheltered that palms and magnolias survive outdoors, and the lakeside walk is lined with flowerbeds from early spring. It was a retreat for Victorian invalids and then for writers: Byron wrote about the nearby Château de Chillon, and Nabokov spent his last years in a suite at the Montreux Palace hotel, where his statue stands in the gardens today.

   Music is the other local industry. The Montreux Jazz Festival began in 1967 and still takes over the lakefront each July, and the town has a deeper rock footnote, too. In December 1971 a fire destroyed the casino during a Frank Zappa concert, and Deep Purple, who had come to record nearby, turned the scene into Smoke on the Water. Queen later bought a studio here and Freddie Mercury lived part of the year in Montreux, so the bronze statue of him on the promenade is rarely without a visitor.

   For riding, the lake itself is not the highlight. The lakeside road is busy, slow and lined with traffic lights. The reward is up the hill: roads climb steeply from town into the vineyard terraces of Lavaux to the west, a UNESCO landscape of walled terraces dropping to the lake, and up behind Montreux toward Caux and the Rochers-de-Naye, where a cog railway climbs to the summit. From the Col de Jaman, further up, you can look back down to the lake. For longer distances, the Col des Mosses and the Col du Pillon lead east and south into the Vaud and Valais Alps.

   Montreux has a population of about twenty-three thousand, and that brings fuel, parking garages, and everything from bakeries to fine dining. Prices are decidedly Swiss. A lakeside coffee is expensive and worth it. Spring and early autumn are best, as summer weekends are crowded and festival weeks are chaos. A Swiss motorway vignette is needed on the A9 that runs above the town, and speed limits are strictly enforced.

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