A collective decision making process

At the Youth Hostel in Schaan, Liechtenstein (the only one I could afford in this country whose GDP is more than the twice the one of France), I had nice exchanges with the manager and his wife about the history and geography of the country. I don’t know why but I have always had a fascination for micro States like this one: how a group of people can organize itself as a State in such a confined territory and with such a small number of inhabitants. It was really impressive to see how much space is still made of fields and grass devoted to agriculture there. 

While leaving Liechtenstein and its big rock bordering Switzerland behind me and after crossing the Rhine again to Switzerland on a beautiful wood covered bridge, I had a nice talk with a local cyclist with whom I shared a small ride. 

Then I crossed the Rhine again, to the East shore again but in Switzerland this time, where I passed by a lot of nice villages in the vineyards. It reminded me a bit of Alsace. Local people told me the valley benefits from a microclimate bringing warm wind from the South. Indeed I was weary short pans today while cycling without feeling any cold. 

I continued to cycle down in the Rhine valley before climbing again to reach a gravel track with impressive views on the gorges of the Rhine on my right side. 

I went down again to the Rhine at the level of Thusis. I then started to look for a gift for my hosting family but it turned out to be difficult to find. I had completely lost the sense of the calendar and forgotten about the fact we were on Easter weekend. All the shops seemed to be closed. I nevertheless found a big (Swiss) chocolate rabbit at the small shop next to a gas station and I started to climb up again on steep road to reach the village of Masein and looked for « the only orange house of the village, impossible to miss » mentioned by my host in this message.

It revealed to be quite difficult to find. I then realised I had no Swiss data on my phone so my only option was to rely on old good methods and I went to ask randompeople of the village if they knew of a young guy called Laurin, my host. In fact the lady I asked had been his teacher when he was at school in the village. She showed me the said orange house. I promised her to send him her regards (and I did!). Inside the big orange house (an old farmhouse renovated) all the family members (Sarna and Kaspar, the two parents and Laurin) were preparing a nice smelling spinach lasagne for the dinner. The two daughters joined later. 

We had really nice exchanges and we checked extensively on an old map of Switzerland to decide on which pass would be the better one to take to get to Italy in the coming days, taking into consideration multiple factors, such as the weather forecast - very bad for the next two coming days, the beauty of the landscapes, the snow that can still block the road (some ski slopes cut the road on some parts), the traffic on an Easter weekend, the places where the passes would lead me to, the accommodation options (might be freezing in the tent at some altitude!) and the amount and percentage of elevation gain. A very interesting collective decision making process started at this moment. Everyone had his word. Two decisions have been made that evening. 1. I will stay here one more night to see how the weather forecast evolves. 2. The best option for the itinerary, all the factors having been duly considered, would be to take first Splügen pass and then the Chiavenna pass on the two next cycling days. Hopefully under better weather conditions that the ones being announced and, if I am very lucky, under the sun at least for the second one. 

For the time being, my bike and my legs are enjoying their first rest day after 5 stages, 5 countries crossed (France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein) and almost 400k cycled (a tenth of the full distance and probably not the easiest one in terms of elevation gain). 

I wish you all happy Easter!