To my mind the most beautiful part of the tour! From Grimsel pass the Furka road with many serpentines goes down for 6 km to the village of Gletsch. I had wonderful views to the surrounding mountains and I couldn’t help but I had to stop to take pictures about every 200 m. My breaks nearly overheated by this. Gletsch has a small train station and a historic steam train line, but no steam engine was around when I passed by.
From Gletsch the Furka road rises for about 10 km to the Furka pass. After about 7 km you reach the ancient Grand Hotel Belvédère in a narrow turning of the road (a site which had been part of a James Bond movie). The hotel is closed since a couple of years, but vis-à-vis there is a little kiosk and the entrance to the Rhone glacier with its glacial lake and a man-made ice-cave. In former times the cave was part of the glacier and began next to the road. Now you have to walk several hundred meters (entrance fee: something about 10 CHF). The ice-cave is at the end of its life and no „must-see“, but the view to the glacier and the lake is nice and you don’t see both from the road.
The Furka pass, the highest point of my whole tour, then is reached fast. There you find no kiosk or restaurant, I only stopped for the mandatory „peak picture“ and to put on warm clothes for the descent. 12 km down to the village of Realp, the road in a rather bad condition, and another 8 km via Hospental to Andermatt, where I stopped for lunch.
From Andermatt 3 km back to Hospental. There, in the roundabout, the 10 km rise of the Gotthard road begins. After 6 km cyclists have to turn to the old Gotthard road, which is a paved road. With my touring bike it was okay, with a racing bicycle it would have been more uncomfortable, but nevertheless I saw a lot of cyclists with racing bikes there. The Gotthard pass again has „infrastructure“ to have a break, like several kiosks and restaurants.
The paved road continued for the most part down to Airolo. Paving stone, numberless steep and very narrow serpentines: the descent was very tiring. But the great nature and beautiful views to the mountains outweighed all. Again my breaks overheated by all the stops I had to execute to take pictures!
