From Flatlands to Peaks: My Solo Summer Escape to Graubünden
DAY 1
The Transit Tango: A Tour of European Platforms
While the train itself was a beacon of comfort—spacious, smooth, and allowing for hours of welcome rest—the connections felt designed by a sadist with a stopwatch. I should’ve chosen my connections better. Travelling with my bike I thought it would have been smarter to have enough time to go from train to train with no worries. But sadly the connections were way longer than I had thought.
My journey started shortly after leaving Amsterdam, as I boarded the first leg to Düsseldorf. From there, the real transit chess game began, aiming for the promise of the Swiss Alps.
Düsseldorf to Basel: The initial leg was comfortable, eating up the hours and bringing me to the Swiss border.
The Basel Wait: This is where the challenge began. A lengthy four-hour layover in Basel, waiting for the designated regional service that could finally accommodate a bicycle on its way to Zurich.
Zurich to Chur: After the Basel marathon, I finally made it to the major hub of Zurich, only to face yet another hour-long wait before hopping onto the next regional SBB train heading to the final major station: Chur.
Total transit time? Well over eight hours. It was a long day of watching the world blur by, the promise of mountain air and the beauty of Graubünden the only things sweeter than the comfortable seat.
The Final Gauntlet: Bike on a Bus
Arriving in Chur, I was relieved—until I remembered the last leg of the ascent. Lenzerheide sits about 1400m high in the mountains, and from Chur, the final vertical push requires Bus Line 182.
This was the most nerve-wracking moment of the entire journey. As I watched the driver strap my precious road bike—my ticket to mountain freedom—onto a rack at the back of the bus, I felt a genuine surge of panic. For a first-timer, watching a streamlined machine, built for speed, being hung precariously off the rear bumper of a public bus for a mountain climb was quite scary. Every twist and turn of the climb to Lenzerheide/Lai, La Riva was spent staring out the window, praying that my baby wouldn't decide to achieve flight.
Ultimately, I made it. Every hour of travel, every long wait, and every terrifying bus journey was worth it the moment I clipped in and felt that clean, crisp mountain air hit my lungs. The hassle was real, but the reward is finally enjoying my summer escape, solo, among the beautiful mountains of Graubünden.
Ready to enjoy every hill that the Netherlands lacks.
It all begins with an idea. Mine was to simply enjoy my summer on my own in the mountains of Switzerland. For a cyclist now living in the Netherlands, the flat landscape—while beautiful in its own way—leaves me with a constant craving. Having absolutely no hint of a hill nearby had begun to feel less like peaceful tranquility and more like geographical deprivation. So, I decided it was time to change the scenery, packing my bags and my bike for the majestic heights and serene valleys of the Graubünden region.
This journey was about reconnecting with vertical metres, breathing mountain air, and finding quiet on the open road. The destination was Lenzerheide, but getting there was an adventure in itself—a true test of a cyclist's dedication, and the ultimate introduction to European rail travel with a bike.
