Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
74 km from Nidau to Nidau, about 1 h 17 of riding. On the way it passes Lobsigensee, Old City of Berne and back through Lobsigensee. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Scenic road chapters
Grand Tour of Switzerland
This part of the ride is 17 km of Grand Tour of Switzerland.
Chapter facts
Length
17 km
Named road
Grand Tour of Switzerland
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Bahnhof
The label says only "Bahnhof", which is a nicely Swiss joke, because the real attraction here is not a station at all but the south shore of Lake Biel between Täuffelen, Gerolfingen and Lüscherz. This is the Seeland, a low, fertile plain between the lakes, and the villages along the shore are surrounded by vegetable fields, orchards and vineyards on the gentle slopes. Like the shores of Lake Neuchâtel to the south, this lake edge was home to prehistoric pile-dwelling villages, and several sites around Lake Biel form part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The finds, from pottery to wooden tools, tell of farming communities that lived here thousands of years ago.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bahnhof is where the day begins. Next is Lobsigensee.
2. Lobsigensee
Lobsigensee is a tiny lake, barely more than a pond, hidden among fields and woods on a low hill above Aarberg in the Bernese Seeland. It is a nature reserve, ringed with reeds and alder trees, and it is home to frogs, newts, dragonflies and birds. It also hides one of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage sites: the remains of Neolithic settlements along its shore. There is nothing visible on the surface, but the quiet, green setting gives a sense of what the landscape might have looked like thousands of years ago.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lobsigensee comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old City of Berne.
3. Old City of Berne
Bern does not shout. The Swiss capital sits on a sandstone spur in a tight loop of the green Aare, with six kilometres of arcaded streets that let you walk the whole old town in the rain without getting wet. It was founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, and legend says he named it after the first animal he killed hunting nearby, a bear. The bears have been the town's mascots ever since, and a few still live in the BärenPark down by the river at the end of the Nydeggbrücke.