14th of July was the 90th anniversary of my uncle Werner and we celebrated it with a performance of my cousin Julika and Nicolas on their violas and me spontaneously with singing “Fahrradfahrn” by Max Raabe. It was very touching to have this family moment together, while outside the rain clouds moved away.
We were packed and ready to leave by noon. We were lucky to be able to catch the cable car just three minutes before it left Riederalp. Once you step out of the gondola down in the valley you can already feel the temperature change immediately and with the humid air it felt nearly tropical compared to the high altitude above tree-line.
The advantage of traveling by bike is the chance to be thrown back into time when horses, mules and stagecoaches were the choice of mobility within the Alps. You get to see villages, were the main road just is as wide as the wheelbase of a coach trying to cross rivers on small bridges and passing under houses which have built their first floor over the road. There are usually no cars allowed anymore, but you still fit with your steel horses and bags.
At the town of Brig we were surprised by the huge castle with three towers called the Stockalper-Palace. The towers frame a huge Renaissance court with arcades. He was a clever businessman and therefore called “King of the Simplon” or “Fugger of the Alps”. Around Brig there are several churches, chapels and Monasteries. At the end we saw all of them, but in not a single one we were able to find the stamps for our Pilgims credentials. It was at the tourist info by the railway station that we were finally lucky to get our passes stamped.
Now we had to catch up with the time and continue down the valley, while the temperature rose up to 30° C. We were getting not only into warmer climate, but also into a wider valley floor, which allowed to grow all kinds of fruit trees and grapes. The apricots were just ripe for being harvested. And the first time we were able to hear the sound of cicadas.
Mostly our bike trail was now on the river dam of the Rhone with some detours through beautiful villages like Brigerbad or the Rilke village of Raron. Crossing the river of Lonza you could tell by its brown colour that it carried a lot of mud from the huge glacial landslide, which destroyed the village of Blatten. Where the Rhone and Lonza joined you were able to experience the difference of the two different colours of rivers.
We had to make quite a lot of distance that day to reach Sierre before the Rotary Club joined for their dinner meeting. Our water was nearly finished and at one of those fruit stands I asked for a fresh harvested apricot, but they sold only unites of a kilo, which didn’t make sense on our charged bikes.
Just reaching Sierre we also crossed the language border into the French speaking part of Switzerland. So from now on we will enter the Franco phonic world. We were hearty welcomed by our Rotarian friends Natacha, Frederic and their son Pierre-Emile in their beautiful house in the vineyards, where we just could get a quick shower before we had to leave for their Rotary dinner with the president Olivier Siggen. We enjoyed a beautiful evening in southern atmosphere under trees down by a lake shore.
