Grand Tour of Switzerland (1643 km)

Zurich to Zurich

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Why this ride

Out of Zürich and back again: 1643 km, roughly 26 h 30 in the saddle. On the way it passes Rhine Falls, St Gallen, Appenzell and Davos. The highest point is about 2,650 m. Fluela Pass and Furka Pass are subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It suits an unhurried touring pace.

Roadbook

1. Zurich start

   Zurich is the polite, prosperous kind of city that keeps its history discreet. It lies at the northern end of Lake Zurich, where the Limmat river runs out of the lake and through the old town, and it began as a Roman customs post called Turicum on the hill now known as the Lindenhof. By the sixteenth century it was a centre of the Reformation under Huldrych Zwingli, who preached at the Grossmunster, the twin-towered church that still dominates the skyline. Across the river, the Fraumunster holds stained glass windows by Marc Chagall, and the light inside on a bright morning is worth a short detour.

   As a rider you will probably come here by the motorway network, and the traffic can be heavy at rush hour, with trams, buses and bicycles all claiming their share of the road. Parking for motorbikes is generally reasonable if you look for the marked bays, and the old town is mostly pedestrian, so you will have to walk. Remember that Switzerland requires a vignette for motorways, and it applies to motorcycles too. Fuel is easy to find anywhere in the city, but it is not cheap, so filling up a little outside town can save money.

   The Grand Tour of Switzerland starts here for many riders, and you can see why. The lake and the Uetliberg, a ridge that rises above the city and offers a long view over the water and the Alps on a clear day, make a good first view. From the city centre, roads lead south along the lakeshore towards Rapperswil and the Sihl valley, or east towards the hills of the Zurich Oberland, where narrow roads wind through apple orchards and farms.

   Zurich is also a city for eating and wandering. Bahnhofstrasse is one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world, and the cafes along the Limmat are good for people-watching. Try a local classic such as Zurcher Geschnetzeltes, thin veal in a cream sauce, usually served with rosti. The lake is cold but clean enough for swimming in summer, and the bathing spots are full of locals after work.

2. Rhine Falls scenic

   The Rhine Falls, at Neuhausen near Schaffhausen, are the biggest plain waterfall in Europe, not in height, which is about twenty-three metres, but in volume, with a stream some hundred and fifty metres wide pouring over the rock in the early summer when the snow melts in the Alps. The water thunders and the spray hangs in the air, and a central rock, a stump of limestone, stands in the middle of the torrent. A walkway and a set of platforms take you almost to the foam, and the whole thing smells of wet stone and minerals.

   The falls were created at the end of the last ice age, about fourteen to seventeen thousand years ago, when the Rhine was pushed into a new bed by the glaciers and found a hard band of limestone across its path. Goethe visited in the eighteenth century and wrote of the effect on him, and painters including Turner came to paint it. On the north bank sits Schloss Laufen, a castle with a restaurant and a viewing platform, and boats run from both banks to the central rock, which you can climb in season.

   The surroundings are mixed: factories and rail lines nestle close, and the town of Neuhausen, with ten thousand inhabitants, is largely industrial. It is not a place for corners, and this is where the Grand Tour starts to bite on a ride from Zurich to Davos, a day of about two hundred and fifty kilometres heading east and south. The riding near the falls is on flat valley roads and low hills, with views of vineyards and the river, and the German border is only a few hundred metres away, so the road sometimes slips across and back.

   Parking is simple in the area, with plenty of space for bikes beside the falls. Try to come in the morning or late in the afternoon when the crowds thin, and take waterproofs if you plan to go on a boat. Fuel is plentiful in Neuhausen and Schaffhausen. The Swiss motorway vignette is needed for the motorways, and speed cameras are common.

3. St Gallen scenic

   St Gallen grew up around a hermit's cell. In the early seventh century an Irish monk called Gallus settled in a forest valley here, and a monastery grew up that became one of the great centres of learning in medieval Europe. Today the abbey district is a UNESCO site, with a baroque cathedral, an abbey library, and a plan of the cloister, a famous ninth-century drawing that shows what an ideal monastery should look like.

   The library is the highlight. It is one of the oldest and finest in the world, with a hall of carved wood, painted ceilings and gleaming parquet floors, and it holds about a hundred and seventy thousand volumes, many of them medieval manuscripts. Visitors put on felt slippers to protect the floor, which gives the place a hushed quality. The town later became a centre of textile production, famous for embroidery and lace, and the grand merchants' houses of the old town, with their oriel windows, show how rich it became.

   The town sits at about six hundred and seventy metres above sea level, in a hilly region between Lake Constance and the Appenzell hills, and the roads leaving it are the draw for riders. To the south, the Appenzell loop runs through green rolling country of farms, wooden houses and cow bells, with the Santis mountain towering above. Teufen is a village on the way, and the pass road up to Schwagalp climbs to the foot of the Santis. Traffic is moderate, and the surface is excellent, but the corners tighten quickly and the weather can change from sun to rain in minutes.

   St Gallen has about seventy thousand people and every kind of service, with fuel, workshops and plenty of cafes. Try the St Galler Bratwurst, a veal sausage that is traditionally eaten without mustard, with a piece of bread called a Bürli. In the Appenzell hills, cheese is the local pride, with a spicy hard cheese washed in a secret herbal brine. Autumn is lovely, when the cows come down from the Alps in decorated processions. Spring brings fresh grass and blossom.

4. Appenzell scenic

   Every year on the last Sunday in April, the people of Appenzell Innerrhoden gather in the main square, men and women, many with a ceremonial sword or a bayonet at the hip, and vote with raised hands. The Landsgemeinde is one of the last open-air assemblies of its kind in Switzerland, and it takes place in the middle of this small town, which has been the capital of the half-canton for centuries. Women only gained a vote at the cantonal level here in 1990, after a federal court ruling, which tells you something about how conservative the valley is, and also how proud.

   The town is compact and pretty in a plain way. The Hauptgasse is lined with painted wooden houses with bright facades, bakeries selling Biberli, the local spiced pastries, and cheese shops. Appenzeller cheese, made with a herb brine whose recipe is jealously kept, has a strong smell and a stronger taste, and a piece in your tank bag is a fair souvenir. Tucked around the edges are meadows, dotted with farmhouses and neat stacks of wood.

   Behind the town rises the Alpstein massif, with the Säntis at 2,502 metres as its summit. The riding here is some of the most enjoyable in eastern Switzerland: green hills, gentle gradients, and a web of narrow, well-surfaced roads that run up and down the valleys. Speed limits are strictly enforced, and cars are numerous, so patience is rewarded. Towards the Schwägalp, the road climbs more seriously, with proper bends and a view of the mountain.

   At about 780 metres, the town sits in a mild valley. Fuel and food are easy to find, and a population around five and a half thousand supports a good range of cafes. On a fine Saturday it fills with visitors, so come early or on a weekday, and give yourself an hour to walk the old streets.

5. Davos scenic

   At about 1,560 metres, Davos is often called the highest town in Europe, and it is certainly one of the most unusual. It lies in a long, broad valley of Graubünden, with ski slopes on both sides, a lake, a main street that looks like a motorway, and a mix of grand old sanatoria, apartment blocks and hotels that tells the story of the town.

   That story begins with air. In the nineteenth century, doctors began to send patients with tuberculosis to Davos, convinced that the thin, dry, sunny mountain air would help, and sanatoria sprang up along the valley. Thomas Mann stayed here while visiting his wife and went on to write The Magic Mountain, set in a sanatorium very much like these. The painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner also settled nearby after the First World War and painted the mountains. Skiing, and then the World Economic Forum, which meets here each January, turned a health resort into a name known around the world.

   For riders, Davos is a good stop at the end of a day over the passes. The Flüela Pass, which climbs from the town toward the Engadin to a height of about 2,383 metres, is one of the finest rides in the area, and the road over the Landwasser valley toward Filisur, with its famous viaduct, is a few minutes away in the opposite direction. Roads near Davos are well surfaced, and traffic can be heavy on summer weekends. Passes are normally open from around June.

   The town has about eleven thousand residents and every service you might want: fuel, supermarkets, repair shops, and a large selection of restaurants. Rooms are costly in January and in the high summer. Take a walk by the Davoser See in the evening, when the light turns the slopes pink and the town goes quiet, and you will understand why people kept coming.

6. Fluela Pass scenic · 2383 m

   The Flüela pass, at 2,383 metres, links Davos with the Lower Engadin, and it is one of the more austere roads in the Swiss Alps: bare rock, small dark lakes and a feeling of height without the crowds of some of its neighbours. The road climbs from the Davos side in a series of broad curves through spruce forest and then through scree and stone, and on the top you find a small lake, the Schottensee, which is at the summit and reflects the surrounding peaks on calm days. A hospice building has stood at the summit for centuries to shelter travellers caught by storms.

   On the east side the descent to Susch is quick and has a number of tight hairpins between steep rock walls and then drops into the Inn valley, with Zernez, a village of about a thousand people and the entrance to the Swiss National Park, a short way along. Susch itself has an old church and fortified buildings, a reminder that this was a trade route to the south. The Swiss National Park, founded in 1914, is the oldest in the Alps, and has ibex, chamois and, on rare occasions, bearded vultures; there are no vehicle roads within it, so visitors walk.

   The riding is a pleasure. The Flüela road is generally good, with fast, open bends on the lower sections and more demanding ones near the top, and traffic is lighter than on Julier or Albula. Low sun on the western side makes for dazzling light in the afternoon, and the air is cold and clear.

   The pass is closed by snow in winter, usually from around November until late spring, and early-season snow showers can make the top slippery well into June. Even in August the temperature at the summit can be close to freezing in the morning, so carry gloves and a warm layer. Thunderstorms in the afternoon are common, and the best time to cross is in the morning.

7. Bernina Pass scenic · 2330 m

   The Bernina Pass is the stark one. At 2,330 metres, it has no forest, no village to speak of, and almost no vegetation to soften the view: just two small lakes, a scatter of buildings at the Ospizio, a railway line, and mountains that look like they were left half-finished. It is also a true divide. Water from one side of the summit lake eventually reaches the Inn and the Danube, and then the Black Sea, while water from the other side flows south to the Po and the Adriatic. Lago Bianco, the milky-green reservoir on the summit, drains toward Italy, and Lago Nero, a little further north, toward the Inn.

   The road climbs from the Engadin side near Pontresina in easy, open curves, then drops south toward Poschiavo in a long run of switchbacks and tight bends, with the climate changing noticeably as it descends from alpine tundra to chestnut and vines near Tirano. The surface is good and the corners are well signed, but the pass is exposed to cold, wind and fog, even in summer, so a layer under your jacket is wise. Snow can arrive early and linger, and while the road is kept open for much of the year, check conditions in winter and spring.

   Next to the road runs the Bernina railway, whose red trains carry the Bernina Express from Chur to Tirano. It is the highest adhesion railway in the Alps, meaning it climbs without cogs, and it was listed by UNESCO with its companion Albula line in 2008. You may find yourself riding beside a train for miles, a good game to play. Above the pass, Piz Palü and the Bernina massif carry glaciers that have shrunk visibly in recent decades. The Diavolezza cable car, just north of the pass, climbs to a ridge with a close view of the ice.

   Poschiavo, about ten kilometres south, has a pump, and Pontresina to the north has more, while Tirano across the Italian border is the nearest town of any size. The Ospizio has a place for a coffee, a hot soup or a slice of nut cake, which is the proper reward for the climb. Ride early in the day to avoid the traffic, and expect to find the light flat and clear and the air thin and cold.

8. St Moritz scenic

   St. Moritz is not subtle, and the world's most famous winter resort does not intend to be. It sits at about 1,800 metres in the Upper Engadine, on a sunlit shelf above a lake, with ranges of white peaks on every side and a record of sunny days that the tourist board advertises with some pride. Its mineral springs were known in the Bronze Age, and in the Middle Ages pilgrims came to drink the water. Winter tourism, legend says, started in 1864 when the hotelier Johannes Badrutt bet English summer guests that they would enjoy the Alps in the snow. The town has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, in 1928 and 1948, and the Cresta Run, an ice toboggan track, still runs every winter.

   Today the centre is hotels, designer shops and some very expensive cars, which makes a dusty motorcycle feel agreeably subversive. It is still worth a stop. Walk the lakeshore, look back at the town from the lower end, and notice how the light makes everything seem sharp and bright. The valley beyond is gentler than many Swiss valleys, with a chain of lakes along the floor from Maloja to Celerina.

   For riders, St. Moritz is a star hub for passes. The Julier Pass heads northeast to the Albula valley, and the Bernina road climbs south to a pass of around 2,300 metres before dropping to Italy at Tirano, with the Rhaetian Railway beside it for much of the way. West, the Maloja road descends to Chiavenna through a dramatic series of hairpins. All are well surfaced and have good views, but weather in the high Alps changes fast. Summer is the easy season, and snow can close passes at any time from October through spring.

   Fuel is available in the town and nearby villages, though prices are among the highest in the country. Cafés in the centre serve the local Engadiner nusstorte, a rich pastry filled with caramel and walnuts, which is a good reason to stop. Leave time for a short walk beside the lake in the evening.

9. Bellinzona scenic

   Bellinzona is the town that guarded the Alps. It lies on a flat piece of the Ticino valley where the routes from the Gotthard, San Bernardino and Lukmanier passes come together, and whoever held it controlled the way between northern Europe and Italy. Three castles, Castelgrande, Montebello and Sasso Corbaro, stand on rocky hills over the old town, linked by walls, and they form a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Milanese Visconti and Sforza dukes strengthened them in the fifteenth century, before the Swiss cantons took control, and Bellinzona stayed with them ever since. The oldest, Castelgrande, rises from a rocky outcrop right in the middle of town, and you can wander its courtyards and ramparts.

   Under the castles, the town has a distinctly Lombard feel, with arcades, piazzas, cafés and a Saturday market that has been drawing people from the surrounding valleys for centuries. The cooking is Ticinese, with polenta, risotto, braised meat and cheeses, and the local Merlot is dry and gentle. Italian is the language of the street, with dialect behind it.

   Riding here, you are at the junction of some of the best roads in Switzerland. North lies the Gotthard and the San Bernardino, to the east Val Mesolcina, and to the west the climb toward Locarno and Lago Maggiore, while a short run south takes you over Monte Ceneri to Lugano. Roads are in excellent condition, with well-banked bends, tunnels and strict enforcement of limits. The Alpine passes are closed in winter, but the Ticino valley itself is mild, with palm trees and camellias, and spring comes early. Autumn is gentle and golden, with chestnuts falling.

   Bellinzona has fuel in the town and on the approach roads, plenty of eating places, and parking near the old centre, though free spaces are scarce on market days. The motorway vignette applies to the A2 through the valley, and the road tunnels can be busy with holiday traffic at weekends in summer. Climb up to Castelgrande in the morning, when the town is quiet, have lunch in a grotto, one of those rustic stone-built restaurants with long tables, and leave time for a coffee on the piazza before riding on.

10. Lugano scenic

    Lugano belongs to Switzerland by history and to Italy by temperament. It sits on the northern shore of a lake of the same name, in the canton of Ticino, with mountains, Monte San Salvatore and Monte Brè, rising straight from the water on either side. Italian is the language, the coffee is Italian, and the pace of life slows by a visible notch compared with Zurich. Ticino joined the Swiss Confederation only at the start of the nineteenth century, after centuries as subject territory of the Swiss cantons, and the town still has the atmosphere of a place with its own story.

    It is the third financial centre of Switzerland, and you notice the banks along the lakefront. The old centre is much more charming than that suggests. Arcades, stone-paved lanes, the Piazza della Riforma with its cafes, and the cathedral of San Lorenzo with its Renaissance facade make a pleasant hour on foot. The Parco Ciani, along the lake, is the right place to sit in the afternoon.

    Riding into Lugano can be slow, as traffic is dense and parking is hard, but once you leave, the surroundings are among the best in southern Switzerland. The roads around the lake wind through villages, with palms and chestnuts, and the road to Monte Generoso or to Morcote on the peninsula is narrow, twisting and beautiful. Spring and autumn are lovely, and in summer it can be hot and humid, with violent thunderstorms. Be careful on the mountain roads, which often have little protection at the edges.

    With a population around sixty thousand, Lugano has all services: fuel at stations on the edge of town, a wide range of food, from a quick panino to a serious dinner, and hotels in every price range. If you are crossing the border to Italy, note that border queues can be long at certain times, so plan around them. Evenings by the lake are the real reward.

11. Andermatt scenic

    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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. Montreux scenic

    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.

15. Lausanne scenic

    Lausanne tips down a steep hillside to Lake Geneva, and you feel it in your legs, your brakes and your bike's low gears. The city sprawls over three hills and a lake front, with the old town at the top and the harbour district of Ouchy at the bottom, joined by one of the world's smallest metro systems. The Gothic cathedral looks out over the roofs and the water toward the French Alps across the lake.

    Lausanne has been the home of the International Olympic Committee since 1915, and the Olympic Museum, near the lakeside, shows the story of the Games in a handsome setting. The city is also a centre of learning, with a major university and a technical institute, which gives it a youthful side. Food and wine are the regular pleasures, with cheese fondue, filets of perch from the lake and the pale white wine of the region on every menu.

    The ride that starts here is the Lavaux, a hillside of terraced vineyards that tumbles down to the lake east of the city. Monks from the Cistercian order began building the terraces in the twelfth century, and they are now a World Heritage Site. The road threads between stone walls, through villages such as Cully, Epesses and Chexbres, with narrow lanes and tight bends. The grape is mainly chasselas, and the hillside faces south, so it soaks up the sun and reflects the light from the lake, which helps ripen the grapes. The best time is autumn, during the harvest, when the leaves turn gold and the air smells of fermenting juice, though spring and summer are lovely too.

    The city has all you need: fuel stations around the edges, plenty of parking for bikes, and lakeside cafes. Traffic can be heavy at rush hour, and some of the old-town streets are steep cobbles, so be careful when wet. Plan a break at one of the wine cellars in the Lavaux, but keep the helmet on until the end of the day.

16. Neuchatel scenic

    Neuchâtel looks across its lake from a long, gentle shoreline, with the Jura mountains rising behind and, on a clear day, the Bernese Alps floating above the far side like a distant promise. The town takes its yellowish tint from the local limestone, a warm honey colour in evening light, and its centre is a tidy lattice of old lanes between the castle and the lakefront. The castle and the Collegiate church sit together on a small hill above the old town, and it was from here that the counts, and later the Prussian kings, ruled. Neuchâtel was under the Prussian crown from 1707 until a republican revolution in 1848, a curious detail that explains its odd, independent character.

    This is a town of watchmakers, scholars and wine. The hills along the lake are lined with vineyards, and the local white, made from Chasselas, is crisp and slightly spritzy, while the pale pink Œil de Perdrix is a regional curiosity. In the nearby Val-de-Travers, the absinthe once banned across Europe was distilled in secret and is now legal again, with a gentle smugness. Rousseau lived in the area for a while, and Le Corbusier was born a short way up the hill in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

    As a riding base, Neuchâtel works nicely as either end of a day. To the north, roads climb up from the lake through the vineyards to the Jura plateau, with long, open curves, pastures and spruce, and the rolling uplands of the Val-de-Ruz and the Chaumont ridge are quiet and pleasant. Along the shore, the lake road toward Yverdon or Biel is flat and quick but busy. The Swiss vignette is needed for motorways, and you should assume speed cameras are common and tolerance is low.

    Fuel, food and parking are all easy in a town of over thirty thousand, though central parking is metered. Lake fish, particularly perch fillets, are the dish to order, and the lakeside promenade makes a good place for a slow coffee before the climb into the Jura. In winter, be alert for ice on the high roads and fog on the lake.

17. Bern scenic

    Bern is the odd capital, one that never calls itself a capital: the Swiss federal government sits here but the official term is federal city. It is also one of the best places in the country to park a bike and walk, because the old town fills a tight loop of the Aare river, with the water running green and fast on three sides far below the bridges. UNESCO put the medieval centre on its list in 1983, and the sandstone arcades along the main streets, about six kilometres of them in total, mean you can shop in the rain without an umbrella.

    The founding story is the usual mix of legend and politics. The Zähringen dukes established the town around 1191 on the peninsula, and by tradition they named it after the first animal they killed on the hunt, a bear, which is why bears are everywhere, from the coat of arms to the pit by the river where live ones are kept in a park. The clock tower, the Zytglogge, puts on a little show of mechanical figures a few minutes before each hour, which draws a small crowd. Einstein lived on the Kramgasse while working at the patent office and developing his early papers, and his flat is open as a museum.

    For a rider, the place is a city stop on the Grand Tour of Switzerland, with all the fuel, food and sleep that implies, and not much of a route in itself. Traffic is dense on weekdays, with trams, buses and restricted zones in the centre, and parking for motorbikes is well provided at the edges. The pleasant approach is from the Aare valley or from the Emmental hills, with their big farmhouses and cheese dairies, and the way out towards Thun and Interlaken is a gentle run to the foot of the Alps.

    A good tip is to cross the river by the Nydeggbrücke and ride up to the rose garden on the hillside for the classic view of the old town, then stop for a coffee in one of the cafés. In summer, Bernese locals drift down the Aare in the water on their backs, and on warm days you will see swimmers in the river. Be careful with tram rails when they are wet.

18. Interlaken scenic

    Interlaken means between the lakes, which is exactly where it sits: a flat strip of land on the Aare, wedged between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, with the Bernese Oberland piled up behind. On a clear day the Jungfrau fills the end of the main avenue, and visitors line up to take pictures of that view across the green lawn of the Höhematte, where paragliders land.

    The town grew out of an Augustinian monastery founded in the twelfth century, and from the early nineteenth century it became one of the first mass tourist towns in Europe, attracting English visitors, artists and poets. The grand hotels along the Höheweg date from that period. Today it is the springboard for the Jungfrau region and the base for every kind of mountain activity, and it can be crowded in July and August.

    For a rider, arriving here after the Grand Tour is a gentle ending. The road along Lake Thun or Lake Brienz is smooth and scenic, with lake water on one side and steep hills on the other, and it is slower than it looks because of traffic, speed cameras and tour buses. Good riding starts as soon as you leave, up the Lauterbrunnen valley with its waterfalls, or over the Brünig toward Lucerne, or up the Grimsel from Meiringen. The mountain passes in this area are open from roughly June to October.

    All services are here: fuel at several stations around the edge of town, supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants with every price. A population of about five thousand makes it small, but it feels bigger because of all the visitors. Parking for a motorcycle is easier than for a car, and the train station is the centre of everything. Take an evening walk by the river when the day-trippers have gone, and the town becomes much quieter.

19. Lucerne scenic

    Lucerne is where central Switzerland likes to show off. The town sits at the end of its lake, with the Reuss river sliding out through the middle, old houses with painted gables along the quay, and mountains on every side, Pilatus to the south and the Rigi to the east. The best-known sight is the Kapellbrücke, the Chapel Bridge, a covered wooden footbridge from the fourteenth century with a stone water tower beside it, and painted panels under the roof. A fire in 1993 burned much of it, and the bridge was rebuilt, so the paintings you see are mostly reconstructions, but the shape is old. Nearby the Lion Monument, carved into a sandstone cliff in 1821, commemorates Swiss guards who died in Paris in 1792, and Mark Twain called it the saddest piece of stone in the world.

    For a motorcyclist, Lucerne is both a hub and a reward. From here the roads fan out toward the Brünig, the Susten, the Furka, the Grimsel and the Gotthard, and in the other direction toward the Entlebuch and the Emmental. The town itself is not for riding, with a dense one-way system, many bus lanes and fines that are issued without sympathy, so park in one of the garages and walk. Speed limits are strictly enforced across Switzerland, and cameras are plentiful.

    The best time is late spring or early autumn, when the light is soft and tour buses are fewer. In July and August the lakefront is full and the Alpine passes are open, with the highest ones usually closed from late autumn into early summer. Lake fog in winter can be thick, though the mountains above are often sunny. The air smells of water and woodsmoke when you arrive by the lake road in the evening.

    At a little over four hundred metres above sea level, the town has everything, with fuel stations on every approach, workshops, hotels and restaurants. Try a Luzerner Chügelipastete, the local pastry filled with veal and mushrooms, or just a coffee at the lakeside. Prices are high, and a vignette is needed on motorways, though you will rarely use them in the mountains. Walk the old town in the evening, cross both bridges, and leave the bike for a ferry ride across the lake.

20. Zurich finish

    Back at Zurich. That is the ride.

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