The hostel was good for the room and the bed and the facilities, but pretty minimalist on breakfast. Adequate though. We headed off over the Rhine and out of Liechtenstein on a fresh morning with heavy but unthreatening clouds. The official route would have taken us through the town centre of Buchs, but vying with early morning traffic for road space held no appeal so we took the navigationally simpler option of the Rhine flood dyke cycle track. Velvet blacktop was offset against traffic noise from the adjacent main road, but all turned peaceful when we rejoined the official route through the countryside mostly running alongside a drainage canal and through fields. No vine terraces today, but no climbing to reach them either. By now, the clouds had vanished. We stopped for coffee and cake at 33km in Altstatten, a beautiful medieval town centre, and continued in glorious sunshine. It all turned pear-shaped as we approached St Margrethen. This we should have skirted round, but a closed section of Cycleway ricocheted us into unsigned city-centre and industrial outskirts mayhem. Happily, with OpenSource mapping on the Garmin, and weeks of pre-planned routing with BaseCamp, we navigated our way back on course. Rejoining the flood dyke we passed into country no. 3 : Austria. From here if should have been simple, but another closed section (due to flood damage resulting from the recent heavy rain in the region) caused a second deviation from route, prettier and quieter this time! Local signage helped (Anne points out that I missed it and she spotted it!), and the Garmin reassured (I'll claim that one), and we cycled through water meadows and flood polders to find where all that silt the Rhine was carrying was deposited: the Rhine delta on Bodensee/Lake Konstanz. A late picnic lunch stop followed whilst looking out over the lake and we were in awe of the number of cycles 'doing the circuit'. We continued and meandered slowly into Bregenz finally ending up in a beer garden overlooking the lake where we were delighted at how cheap the beer was after Swiss prices. Almost as cheap as home! Then on to the hotel and the luxury of having our own bathroom and beds ready made! Anne has now switched from Swiss Pinot Noir and Blauburgunder, to Austrian Zweigelt. Germany and France yet to come!
68.6 km; 16.2 kph avg; 4:13 moving time; 125m ascent
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