After a brief stop at the local cycle shop to buy some more substantial overshoes I was on my way along the south bank of the river. Less than half a mile from Stein am Rhein, the river widens out into the Zellersee, the lesser of the two great lakes I was to ride along for the day, the greater being Lake Constance. This is an enormous body of water, by my cycle computer nearly 50 miles in length and so broad I could barely see the shape of the land on the opposite shore.
Where the lake opens out at the northwest corner there lies the German city of Konstanz. Passing through two border stops in a matter of minutes I said my final Auf Wiedersehen to Germany, a country which has looked after me well for much of the last two weeks.
For most of the rest of the day I stayed on a single A/B road again and this followed a similar course to that of the day before, although it would occasionally approach and even meet the shore of the lake. This variation, in combination with variations in elevation, gave me a pleasing range of perspectives on the lake. I would have liked to have had a whole afternoon to take it all in. It is difficult to appreciate a silent, placid lake when you are dipping in and out of little towns and belting down hills at 25 mph. I did take five minutes to sit on the shore for a banana but this only served to tease out my desire to come here again and relax in the overwhelming quiet of the place.Leaving the shore of the lake, I came to my planned lunch stop, at Sankt Margarethen. I had expected this to be a quaint little Swiss town in the model of the dozen or so I passed through during the day. Sadly it turned out to be quite the opposite and I ended up submitting to McDonald's after much exploration. The Swiss product seemed better quality than that of London but I remained feeling pretty unwell afterwards. I did have a nice chat with a Swiss who checked and translated the Alpine weather reports and suggested I should be ok. This was very heartening.
I am big on principalities so I felt right at home as I cycled out the last few miles to Vaduz. After a sharp telling off from a Liechtensteiner policeman for crossing his traffic line by a few feet I arrived in the pedestrianised city centre, directly below the squat Schloss on the hillside.
None of my Couch Surfing request had come back positive and though I supected several unreturnable calls from Thyssen Krupp Liechtenstein to be a last minute offer, I had to take a room at a hotel. This has not been disagreeable and has given me some free time alone to sort a few things out.
Distance covered 75 miles
