Z U R I C H

After 32 hours on the bus I finally made it to Zurich, Switzerland 🇨🇭 From here my solo bikepacking trip across the country officially began.

I’ll be honest I was a little nervous about how everything would go, but the first impressions were already so good.

Had a nice walk around the city centre and it was impossible not to notice how much people had missed the hot summer weather.
The whole city seemed to be chilling in the lake.

Locals told me they hadn’t had a proper summer, three weeks of non-stop rain. Somehow, I arrived just in time… the forecast flipped to pure sunshine and 30°C for the next two weeks. 🔥 Couldn’t have asked for a better start.

T O T H E

M O U N T A I N S

Day 3 of my journey brought my first real climbs 🚴‍♀️⛰️

The first half of the day felt like a dream, flat roads, easy cycling, swims in the lake… I thought “pff, I’ve got this” 😅🌊

Then the real climb started. The route went through a forest on steep, loose gravel. With my heavy bike it was impossible to ride, even walking was tricky, my shoes sliding on tiny rocks until I was literally tiptoeing my way up 👠

That’s when I got a bit nervous about how the rest of the trip would go...but then quick change of plans: switched my route to stick to road surfaces from then on.

Lesson learned! 💪

Then for the next day my plan was to do some hiking, but bikepacking comes with its own challenges like where to leave all your gear while you’re away. With no camping options around, I ended up at a farm that lets travellers sleep on hay 🌾

Definitely a unique experience sharing a building with the animals and hearing cow bells and other animal sounds all night long 😅🐄🔔

When I first arrived I couldn’t find the owner, so while chatting with other travellers about where to find him, one curious cow became very interested in the Lithuanian flag on my bike 🇱🇹😂 Thankfully one guy noticed and saved it!

And then the goats… they gave me so much attention that I literally had to run away 🐐🏃‍♀️

Gave my body “a rest” from the bike for half a day… which basically meant exercising while hiking in the mountains instead 😅

L I E C H T E N S T E I N

On Day 5, after my hike, I cycled through Liechtenstein 🚴‍♀️🇱🇮 stopping at the main spots along the way.

By evening I was back in Switzerland for the night 🇨🇭

Since Day 6 was planned to be only a half-day of cycling, in the morning I crossed back into Liechtenstein to visit Gutenberg Castle,it had been shining so beautifully from the other side of the Rhine river where I’d slept the night before.

W A L E N S E E

After exploring Liechtenstein with no rush, I turned back to Switzerland.

Day 6 was kind of a rest day, time to charge electronics, do some work on the computer and just recover a bit before the harder days ahead.

Once again the weather was extremely hot so I spent the rest of the day at a campsite near Lake Walensee, where I also met other bikepackers.

After a kind of rest day, the next morning I started moving towards the Alps, closer to the first real climb of the trip 🚴‍♀️⛰️

The scenery began to change, with more and more snowy peaks appearing ahead 🏔️

K L A U S E N P A S S

Klausen Pass - the first real climb of the trip 🚴‍♀️⛰️

I knew it would be tough but the views would be worth it. I was a bit unsure how it would go, the route showed some very steep inclines and with so much weight on the bike anything over 8% is usually too hard to cycle...

But as I started pedalling, maybe because the road was mostly in the shade, the first part of the pass wasn’t as bad as I feared

I managed almost the whole road without walking. However, I couldn’t stick to my original day plan and had to stay up in the mountains for the night. But once again I believed that when things don’t go as planned, something better is waiting for you. And I had no idea that the best night of the whole trip was about to begin 💫

When I reached 1 km up on the Klausen Pass I started wondering where to spend the night. Luckily, I noticed some campers by the river and, for safety, asked if I could stay nearby. They were locals who told me it’s legal to camp in that area and invited me to join them.

We spent the evening around a bonfire with deep talks and dessert. Before the moon rose, we were in complete darkness and even the Milky Way was visible to the naked eye. Also, because it was mid-August, we experienced the peak of falling stars, which kept interrupting our conversations ⭐

My first night where I actually had to dress in warmer clothes. The temperature finally dropped below 20 °C. Huge thanks to my new friends I met up here who gave me a blanket so I wouldn’t get cold through the night 💙

The views were incredible. When I woke up and opened my tent to take it all in, suddenly out of nowhere a helicopter appeared and flew straight toward me. For a moment I thought “what the hell, maybe they’re coming to fine me for camping here,” 😂 even though locals had assured me the evening before that it’s legal at this spot.

Turns out the helicopter was just landing a few metres away and spending the whole morning carrying wooden logs along the valley. A bit annoying as it interrupted conversations with other travellers, but still an unforgettable morning scene 😅

The second climb of the pass was tougher than the first. Even though it was cooler in the mountains (around 23–25 °C), the sun was still draining all my energy ☀️

All the time it felt like a mind game, like controlling my thoughts, reminding myself that everything is fine, it’s just the heat and tiredness. I told myself that it doesn’t matter if I do fewer kilometres today or ride slower (more time to enjoy the views) when even sports cyclists and people with e-bikes were struggling.

Besides, I knew what reward was waiting on the other side: more than 20 km of downhill through serpentines 🏔️

While cycling through the Klausen Pass I stopped at Berglistüber Waterfall. Hidden just off the main road, but it felt like a little piece of Iceland.

A R O U N D

T H E L A K E

After an incredible day in the Alps, I decided to rearrange my route to a flatter one. I felt that doing three mountain passes in a row wouldn’t be much fun for my body, especially in the heat. Even though my baggage was getting lighter each day as I ate through my food stash, I still needed an easier day.

And honestly, it was the best decision. My route took me around a lake, through open tunnels and little towns. A slow, easy day with a breaks by the lake and coffee stops in little towns that felt more like France ☀️ At one point I even had to take a ferry where I met a lot of cyclists and we swapped stories about our trips...

But at the end of the day I literally climbed a wall. I’ve never been on a 22% incline with my bike before! You know it’s serious when you start seeing signs warning of “huge incline” 😅 But before it got dark I reached the top, where for the first time, I saw the peaks and the glacier waiting for me the next day.

G R O S S E

S C H E I D E G G

In the Grosse Scheidegg I left every bit of energy I had left. Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the church bell ringing every hour the night before, maybe the heat, the weight, the steep inclines well, probably all of it together. Other cyclists sometimes looked surprised seeing me crawling up, some shouted bravo! And asked how I could do this without an e-bike. 🤷‍♀️
One Italian family even stopped their car to offer to take my bags, but to unpack everything off the bike is another story…

So, I just kept going slowly. The road was so steep sometimes that when I pushed a bike, my arms were above my head and my feet felt like I was climbing stairs. My right shoulder was paying the price the next day, but with time it doesn’t matter how hard it was, it only matters at that moment.

These photos are from the second climb of the pass, which was flatter and easier, featuring one of the best landmarks of the Swiss Alps, the Rosenlaui Valley.

Despite the tiredness, the Grosse Scheidegg felt like paradise for cyclists. From Rosenlaui Valley to Grindelwald the road is only open to bikes and the views are unreal. Most of the evening I was completely alone on the road, which also felt like pure freedom.

I’m a little sad now that I didn’t manage to take a photo of myself with this scenery. I only had the energy to shoot my bike and the landscapes because setting up a tripod felt like too much. Also, out of the whole two weeks this was the first evening I caught rain and a storm, however, luckily I escaped it, but that story deserves another post.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d spent more time taking photos that evening, my story would have ended up so differently that night 😬

At the top of the Grosse Scheidegg Pass, almost 2 km above sea level, the temperature dropped drastically from around 25 °C to 12 °C.

The clouds turned aggressive and I could see that soon I’d be facing my first rain and storm of the trip. Staying at the summit felt too dangerous because of the lightning and the mountain hotel was already full.

I didn’t want to rush the 30 km descent through one of the most beautiful bike roads that I climbed for that view the whole day and it would be sad to skip it. I sat at the top for about 15 minutes thinking what to do, when suddenly a bikepacking couple from Poland appeared from the other side. They also didn’t know what to do as the weather got worse.

After a chat they invited me to cycle 200m down to a mountain campsite where we could hide from the storm.

Just as we’d moved all our baggage into the hut, the rain started pouring heavily and we were all so happy we’d ended up there because in any other scenario we’d have been flooded in our tents. We had a lovely evening sharing food, drinking tea, and for the first time on the trip I wore all my clothes at once.

Darkness came fast, we went to sleep early and, completely exhausted. I had one of the best sleeps of the whole journey even though I slept on the table 😀

Morning from the mountain campsite ⛺️

The first photo of this post is exactly the view I saw when I opened my eyes.

The night itself was quite interesting: the Polish couple I’d met the evening before set their tent on the ground, while I decided to sleep on a wide wooden table. Once I put my mat and sleeping bag on it, it turned out to be very comfortable and it gave me an open view straight to the peaks and the glacier.

With sleepy eyes I got up to wander around. The clouds were still below the mountain, I could hear waterfalls and even the glacier moving on the hillside, and of course the sound of Swiss cow bells ringing in the valley.

Then the 35 km downhill awaited. It was a cold ride, but when I finally reached Grindelwald I went straight to a cafe for a warm coffee. Later I kept going downhill to visit another very popular village Lauterbrunnen with its famous waterfall.

But after the wild views of Grosse Scheidegg it felt a bit too touristy and over-influenced, so I didn’t spend much time there and instead continued cycling towards Bern.

B E R N

Left all my baggage at the camping and cycled to explore the city.

After two weeks, I had forgotten how different it feels to ride without weight, it was so easy 🕊😏