On August 1st we celebrated my first Swiss National Day as a Swiss National. After clearing up, on the 2nd, we packed our camping gear into a couple of trailers and started cycling across Switzerland, from Neuchatel towards Appenzell.
Our aim for the first day was fairly modest: to go from our home to a campsite on the shore of the Lac de Bienne.
We ended up fighting a couple of fierce inclines (by the side of a lake, no less!) so made much slower progress than Google Maps had predicted. (This did help us recalibrate expectations for the rest of the week’s cycling, though, very importantly.) As our 8pm check-in deadline (the closing time of the original campsite’s reception) was fast approaching, we settled for a different – but very nice – campsite a few clicks short of it.
It was our first night of camping since last year’s big trip, and thankfully all the pegs and poles were where they needed to be.
The next day we headed up to Nidau – just south of Bienne – to…