Friday 6 September 2013

Tour Proposal: Turin - Black Forest

Overall Description
This bicycle trip will pick you up in the magic atmosphere of the dense woodland of the German Black Forest, the region which extends from the Swiss border, north from Basel, up to Baden-Baden city. This trip touches only the southern part (Southern Black Forest Nature Park) of the Schwarzwald, which is rich of nature and local traditions. The Tour will pass across Switzerland with its spectacular mountain passes like Simplon Pass, Furkapass and Great St Bernard Pass and reach the Feldberg in the Black Forest (Germany), the highest peak in the area, and the lakeside resort towns of Titisee, the reservoir Lake of Schluchsee and many other highlights that you can see below in this post.

Overall Map and Stages
Open in Google Maps
Stages:
1st Stage: Turin - Ameno (128 Km)
2nd Stage: Ameno - Brig, Switzerland (114 Km)
3rd Stage: Brig - Isenthal (126 Km)
4th Stage: Isenthal - Ühlingen-Birkendorf (138 Km)
5th Stage: Ühlingen-Birkendorf - Todtmoos (82 Km)
6th Stage: Todtmoos - Wolfisberg (88 Km)
7th Stage: Wolfisberg - Montbovon (121 Km)
8th Stage: Montbovon - Aosta (143 Km)
9th Stage: Aosta - Turin (127 Km)


1st Stage: Turin - Ameno (128 Km)

Highlights
Picture from Wikipedia
The Orta Lake area is full of beautiful landscapes and history. It has been so named since the 16th century, but was previously called the Lago di San Giulio, after Saint Julius (4th century), the patron saint of the region; Cusio is a merely poetical name. Its southern end is about 35 km by rail NW of Novara on the main Turin-Milan line, while its north end is about 6 km by rail south of the Gravellona-Toce railway station, half-way between Ornavasso and Omegna. Its scenery is characteristically Italian, while the San Giulio island has some very picturesque buildings, and takes its name from the local saint, Julius of Novara, who lived in the 4th century. (Read More...)

Route 
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 127 Km
Vertical Climb: 530 m
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Download here the Bikemap GPX file

Hotel info
Albergo Ristorante Monterosa
Via Armando Diaz 7, Ameno
Phone: +390322998174
website: http://www.albergoristorantemonterosa.com/ (Booking.com)

2nd Stage: Ameno - Brig, Switzerland (114 Km)

Highlights
Picture from Wikipedia
The Simplon Pass (2005 m) is an high mountain pass  which connect Domodossola (IT) to Brig (CH) and it is one of the most beautiful crossing of the Alps. The pass itself and the villages on each side of it, such as Gondo, are in Switzerland. The Simplon Tunnel was built beneath the vicinity of the pass in the early 20th century to carry rail traffic between the two countries.
About 500 m (1,640 ft) west of Simplon Pass lies a lower, unnamed pass, at an altitude of 1,994 m or 6,542 ft. It is the lowest point on the watershed between the basins of the Rhone and the Po in Switzerland.
Rotelsee is a lake located near the pass at an elevation of 2,028 km (1,260 mi). (Read More...)

Route 
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 114 Km
Vertical Climb: 3000 m
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Hotel info
Schlosshotel Art Furrer
Spittelgasse 3, Brig
Phone: +41279229595
Website: http://www.schlosshotel.ch/home (Booking.com)

3rd Stage: Brig - Isenthal (126 Km)

Highlights
Picture from Wikipedia
Furkapass (2436 m) is one of the highest pass in Switzerland which connects Andermatt with Gletsch. It is one of the most spectacular roads in the world. It is also famous for the railway with the steam engine train from Realp to Gletsch as an unforgettable experience.

The Furka Pass was used as a location in the James Bond film Goldfinger. (Read More...)

Route 
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 125 Km
Vertical Climb: 2390 m
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Hotel info
Hotel Urirotstock
Dorfstrasse 27, Isenthal
Phone: +41418781152
Website: http://hotelurirotstock.roomwhizz.com/ (Booking.com)

4th Stage: Isenthal - Ühlingen-Birkendorf (138 Km)

Highlights 
Picture From Wikipedia
Lake Lucerne (German: Vierwaldstättersee, lit. "Lake of the Four Forested Cantons") is a lake in central Switzerland and the fourth largest in the country.
The lake has a complicated shape, with bends and arms reaching from the city of Lucerne into the mountains. It has a total area of 114 km² (44 sq mi), an elevation of 434 m (1,424 ft), and a maximum depth of 214 m (702 ft). Its volume is 11.8 km³. Much of the shoreline rises steeply into mountains up to 1,500 m above the lake, resulting in many picturesque views including those of Mount Rigi and Mount Pilatus. (Read More...)

Picture from Wikipedia
Lake Lauerz (German: Lauerzersee, old spelling: Lowerzer See) is a lake in the Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland. Its area is about 3 km² and its maximum depth is 13 m. There are two small islands in the lake (the Schwanau and the Roggenburg).
In 1806, a landslide into the lake caused a tsunami 20 metres high. (Read More...)
Picture From Wikipedia
Lake Zug (German: Zugersee) is a lake in Central Switzerland, situated between Lucerne and Zurich. The Lorze as the main feeder river empties its waters into the lake at its northern extremity, but 1 km (0.6 mi) further west issues from the lake to pursue its course towards the Reuss. Due to this poor feeding, Environmental protection is very important as the lake would suffer long term damage if polluted as the second of the rivers, Rigiaa, feeds only a marginal amount into the lake at its southern end. (Read More...)

Picture From Wikipedia
Waldshut district. The today stage ends up in the Southern Black Forest area, exactly in the Waldshut district, in the town of Ühlingen-Birkendorf.
Picture from Wikipedia
The town is a holiday resort and administrative centre of the four-valley community.
A beautiful and old stock of trees and the delightful flow of the Schlücht are the major features of this town.

Download here a pdf  about Ühlingen Municipality.

Route
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 137 Km
Vertical Climb: 1390 m
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Hotel info
Posthorn
Hauptstrasse 12, Ühlingen-Birkendorf
Phone: +49 0 7743 244
Website: http://www.posthorn-uehlingen.de/ (Booking.com)

Links (Southern Black Forest)
Map from Southern Black Forest Park web
Black Forest Tourism
Southern Black Forest Park
Southern Black Forest Rough Guides
The Complete Guide of the Black Forest
Just The Travel
5th Stage: Ühlingen-Birkendorf - Todtmoos (82 Km)

Highlights
From Wikipedia
Feldberg (1493 m) is the highest mountain in the Black Forest and it is a famous ski area. The local municipality was named after the mountain. Freiburg im Breisgau is the closest city.
From Wikipedia
Titisee is a Lake in the South Black Forest area, it is said that the name is inherited from the roman emperor Titus. It is born from the melting ice of Feldberg glacier. it is one of the most beautiful lake of the Black Forest, it covers an area of 1,3 Km2 and it is 40 m deep.
Picture from Wikipedia
The Schluchsee is a reservoir lake in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, southeast of the Titisee in the Black Forest near Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Todtmoos Picture from Wikipedia
TodtNau Picture from Wikipedia
Route
From Bikemap
Distance: 83 Km
Vertical Climb: 1620 m
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Hotel info
Hotel Löwen
Hauptstrasse 23, Todtmoos
Phone: +49 (0) 7674 9055 0
Website: http://www.hotel-loewen.de/ (Booking.com)

6th Stage: Todtmoos - Wolfisberg (88 Km)

Highlights
Picture from Wikipedia
Bad Säckingen is a rural town in the administrative district of Waldshut in the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is famous as the "Trumpeteer's City" because of the book "The Trumpeteer of Säckingen", a famous 19th century novel by German author Joseph Victor von Scheffel. (Read More...)

Route
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 100 Km
Vertical Climb: 600 m
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Hotel info
Hotel Restaurant Alpenblick
Schürchenstrasse 1, Wolfisberg
Phone: +41794341720
Website: http://www.alpenblick-wolfisberg.ch/ (Booking.com)

7th Stage: Wolfisberg - Montbovon (Montreux) (121 Km)

Highlights
Picture From Wikipedia
Lake Morat (French: Lac de Morat (official name); German: Murtensee) is a lake located in the cantons of Fribourg and Vaud in the west of Switzerland. It is named after the small town of Murten/Morat on its southern shore. Its official name in switzerland is "Lake Morat".
It is the smallest of the three lakes in the Seeland or Pays des trois lacs area of the Swiss plateau located at the foot of the first chain of the Jura mountains. The main tributary is the river Broye.
Since the Jura water correction its water leaves the lake through the Broye Canal (Canal de la Broye) into nearby Lake Neuchâtel that is connected to Lake Bienne through the canal de la Thielle. Thus all three lakes form a natural reservoir in order to retain overflow water from the river Aar that flows into Lake Bienne: in times of combined heavy rainfalls and glacier melting in the Alps, the peculiar situation arises that the water flows backwards through the Thielle and Broye canals, preventing an overflow of the Grand Marais. (Read More...)

Picture from Wikipedia
Fribourg is the capital of the Swiss canton of Fribourg and the district of Sarine. It is located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss plateau, and is an important economic, administrative and educational center on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland (Romandy). Its Old City, one of the best maintained in Switzerland, sits on a small rocky hill above the valley of the Sarine. (Read More...)
Picture from Wikipedia
Lake of Gruyère (French: Lac de la Gruyère; German: Lac de la Gruyère or Greyerzersee) is a lake in the La Gruyère region of the Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland.
The reservoir was formed between the cities of Bulle and Fribourg, by building the Rossens Dam on the Sarine river in 1948. The arch dam has a height of 83 m and a crest length of 320 m. The reservoir filled in about four months after completion.
The remains of the castle of Pont (or Pont-en-Ogoz) and a chapel are located on the Ile d'Ogoz, one of the five islets in the lake.
The "Viaduc du Lac de Gruyère" of the A12 motorway was built in the 1970s. The bridge has a total length of 2043 m and crosses three valleys, including two arms of the lake.
Route
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 121 Km
Vertical Climb: 990 m
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Hotel info
Hotel Pension de la Gare
Route de l'Intyamon 332, Montbovon
Phone: +41269281088
Website:  (Booking.com)

La Rouvenaz 
rue du marche 1, Montreux, 1820, Switzerland
Phone:    +41219632736
Web: http://www.rouvenaz.ch/ (Booking.com)

8th Stage: Montbovon (Montreux) - Aosta (143 Km)

Highlights
Picture from Wikipedia
Great St Bernard Pass: is the third highest road pass in Switzerland. It connects Martigny in the Canton of Valais in Switzerland to Aosta in Italy. It is the lowest pass lying on the ridge between the two highest summits of the Alps, Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa. The pass itself is located in Switzerland in the canton of Valais, very close to Italy. It is located on the main watershed that separates the basin of the Rhone from that of the Po.
Great St. Bernard is the most ancient pass through the Western Alps, with evidence of use as far back as the Bronze Age and surviving traces of a Roman road. In 1800, Napoleon's army used the pass to enter Italy, an event depicted in Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass and Hippolyte Delaroche's Bonaparte Crossing the Alps, both notable oil paintings. Having been bypassed by easier and more practical routes, particularly the Great St Bernard Tunnel which opened in 1964, its value today is mainly historical and recreational.
Straddling the highest point of the road, the Great St Bernard Hospice was founded in 1049. The hospice later became famous for its use of St. Bernard dogs in rescue operations.

Route
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 144 Km
Vertical Climb: 3090 m
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Hotel info
TBD. Many options available on Booking.com.

I would suggest as alternative to stay in the Great St Bernard Hospice instead of stayng in Aosta and continue the day after toward Torino, in that case tha last stage would be a little bit longerbecause it will start with the downhill to Aosta.

9th Stage: Aosta - Turin (127 Km)

Highlights
Picture from Wikipedia
Aosta is the principal city of Aosta Valley, a bilingual region in the Italian Alps, 110 km (68 mi) north-northwest of Turin. It is situated near the Italian entrance of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, at the confluence of the Buthier and the Dora Baltea (French: Doire baltée), and at the junction of the Great and Little St. Bernard routes. Aosta is not the capital of the province, because Aosta Valley is the only Italian region not divided into provinces. Provincial administrative functions are instead shared by the region and the communes. (Read More...)

Picture from Cuboviaggiatore
The Fort Bard (Italian: Forte di Bard - French: Fort de Bard) is a fortified complex built in the 19th century by the House of Savoy on a rocky prominence above Bard, a town and comune in the Aosta Valley region of northwestern Italy. Fort Bard has been completely restored after many years of neglect. In 2006 it reopened to tourists as the Museum of the Alps, it has additional art exhibitions and galleries. In the summer, the main courtyard is used to host musical and theatrical performances. (Read More...)

Route
Picture from Bikemap
Distance: 125 Km
Vertical Climb: 600 m
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