I am feeling a sense of loss as my Swiss travel pass expires in just a few hours.
The trains work so well here in Switzerland! It is just amazing. Over the last 10 days, I didn’t miss my car even once. But over the coming days I am going to miss these wonderful trains many many times.
Traveling in a cable car to that village down below. Swiss public transportation is just incredible!
Männlichen to Kleine Sheidegg: This was the best hike on a day with perfect weather and fantastic panoramic views all around
Switzerland is a super popular holiday destination for tourists from India and many Asian countries. Saw this sign at the top of Jungfraujoch.
After winning the time trial on day 13, Tadej consolidated his first place in general classification and brought his tally of TdF stage wins to 21. Don’t think it will take many more years for him to break Cavendish’s record of 35 stage wins.
This view gives an idea of the size of these mountains. The tallest peak here is Jungfrau at about 13000 ft. (Still less than half of Mt. Everest.) We visited the glacier at the left edge of the picture that sits at 11,333 ft.
This view of the Lauterbrunnen valley was the inspiration for JRR Tolkien when he conjured up Rivendell in “The Lord of the Rings”.
The super hard stage 10 on Bastille day was won by Simon Yates and Ben Healy grabbed the yellow jersey away from Pogacar. Not sure how long it will stay away as Tadej and other GC contenders will be racing hard in the mountainous second week of TdF after today’s rest day.
What a fantastic effort by Mathieu van der Poel and Rickart on stage 9 of TdF!!! The duo was ahead for 150+ kms. MdvP was finally caught in the last km and Tim Merlier pulled off a second stage win ahead of Milan. I guess the sprinters can take a back seat till the last day on Champs-Elysees.
Stage 8 of TdF had a flat finish in Laval; made for a bunch sprint. With Philipsen out of the tour, Jonathan Milan doesn’t have much competition but Wout van Aert almost pulled ahead of Milan at the finish line. Girmay got caught in the bunch and finished 10th. Another sprint day on stage 9.
Stained glass windows and the pipe organ at Fraumunster in Zurich. The green, blue and yellow windows (+2 more not seen here) were made by the artist Marc Chagall in 1970. This church was founded and has been around since the year 853.
On day 7 of TdF the riders faced Mur de Bretagne at the end of the stage. Tadej Pogacar claimed his 19th TdF stage win and 101st professional win to get back in the yellow jersey. Several riders were injured in a crash which spared the top contenders in the general classification.
In the stage 6 of Tour de France, the breakaway succeeded over that hilly terrain. Ben Healy won the stage but, van der Poel finished ahead of Pogacar to get a 1 second lead and claim the yellow jersey back. This is turning out to be an exciting race even before getting to the mountains.
