Day 8 – From Schaffhausen to Bad Zurzach

Breakfast in the Park Villa hotel was a fairly sumptuous affair. I had my personal waiter, an impossibly deferential little chap, and the table was laid with crisp white linen cloths and napkins. No prepacked gobbits of cream-cheese and marmalade here: everything was fresh and delivered to my table in its own dish with a relevant announcement. The coffee, for once in Switzerland, was of the sort worth getting up for, and the gipfeli (croissants) were warm and crisp and not simply re-heated. I was intrigued by the magnificently mounted elephant’s tusks at the entrance to the alcove at the end of the room, but since they’re missing from the picture of it on the hotel’s website, I imagined they might be a source of embarassment. I seized the opportunity to photograph them nevertheless.

The dining room at the Park Villa Hotel

It was still raining when I was having breakfast, but by the time I was ready to set off, things had dried out and the clouds were lifting. By ten o’clock it was warm again.

Refreshment stop at Ellikon

I stopped in the little riverside village of Ellikon for a drink. The only cafe in the village was an enormous outdoor establishment with serried ranks of long tables and seating for hundreds. Since I and two other cyclists were the only customers it was difficult to see how business could ever be brisk enough to sustain an enterprise of this scale, but I guess the stampede starts a bit later in the summer.

The Cycle Way approaching Eglisau

After Ellikon, the cycle trail leaves the river in order to cross the Thur on the only bridge in the region. This detour meant a lot of hills – up and down – but eventually the path rejoined the river near Teufen, crossing another little tributary, the Töss, on a convenient little footbridge. If I had missed this crossing I would have had another hilly detour of some distance to get to the only other useful bridge across the Töss. The footbridge is so small and well hidden that until the very last moment, when it finally became visible, I assumed I’d made a silly mistake and would have to backtrack.

Second World War defenses facing the German bank of the Rhine

From the fortifications at Sargans and the tank traps at Kreuzlingen, it’s obvious along the whole length of the Swiss Rhine that the Swiss have long been well prepared to repel invaders who might be tempted to cross the river. Along the whole length of the northern border of Switzerland from the point at which the Rhine flows west out of Lake Constance to the stretch that approaches Basel, these testimonies to World War Two nervousness remain frequently visible. This bit of the Rhine has been part of a conflict-bedeviled frontier for millennia at least from the time when the Romans used it as a bit of a back-stop for their limes Germanicus – the defensive border that meandered between what are now the modern towns of Mainz to Regensburg, designed by the Romans to keep the pesky Germanic tribes in check.

Lunch stop in Kaiserstuhl

The only village on this section of the ride that was worth visiting was Kaiserstuhl – meaning ’emperor’s seat’. There are a number of places along this stretch of the Rhine that allude to this or that emperor, Roman or otherwise – Augst and Kaisersaugst for example – but I could find no convincing explanation for Kaiserstuhl which is also the name of a range of hills in Germany.

The ride after lunch was completely unmemorable and I stopped in Bad Zurzach because with two more days to go, I didn’t want to arrive in Basel too quickly.

I went to the local  Tourist Information office to find a room for the night and they recommended I go to the Zurzacher Hof Hotel. Knowing no better, I agreed to their making a booking and went to check the place out. It turned out to be a ghastly sixties-style block entirely lacking in character, both inside and out. There were other hotels in town that looked more welcoming, but I found this out only after agreeing to take the room that had been booked for me (see: http://www.zurzacherhof.ch/).

General view of Bad Zurzach

The Zurzacher Hof Hotel is a spa hotel and I could have taken the waters since they threw in a free session of hydrotherapy with the room. I considered it, particularly in light of the creaking joints and limbs; the idea of being hosed down, or even pursued by some sadistic orderly in a white coat waving a rubber tube, was a bit too much to take, however, so I decided to forego the pleasure.