Saturday, 16 June 2012

Sargans

Sevelen

15.4

840.4

Sunny and hot

Hotel Post, Sargans

Yoghurt, bread and jam for breakfast; sandwiches for lunch; soup, salad, Mexican burger, rice and vegetables for dinner.

None really

Breakfast wasn't available until 8:30am and, for various logistical reasons, it wasn't sensible to hike beyond Vaduz in Liechtenstein today, which was about 20km away, so I resolved to have an easy day.  I left the hotel about 9:30am and walked into the centre of Sargans where there was a supermarket and I bought some sandwiches.  There were a few hotels around the centre of town, confirming that I would have been wiser to walk the extra 15 minutes yesterday.

From Sargans, the trail climbed up to pass close by the Schloss (castle) and then stayed on the hillside as it headed north along the Rhine valley, with Liechtenstein on the other side.  The sun was beaming down and it was a very warm morning.  I passed through a number of villages along the way and there were lots of people out gardening, cutting hay, walking and cycling.  In other places the trail passed through relatively cool forests and alongside some streams.  I found a bench in one of these cooler spots and ate my lunch around noon.  It would have been easy to spread out my groundsheet and have a nap in the shade on such a balmy day.

From there I walked a further hour, passing by another castle, before descending into the village of Sevelen, the last village on my route in Switzerland.  I walked to the railway station looking for accommodation, but didn't see anything.  It was another 2-3km to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, but I wasn't confident of finding anything reasonably-priced there, so decided to catch a train back to Sargans, get a hotel there, and then return to start hiking again in the morning.

I booked into the Post Hotel in Sargans around 2:30pm.  It's a little pricier than I would like, but has excellent facilities and a cheap three-course dinner menu, so it's not so bad.  I can breakfast at 6:30am tomorrow, so will try and make an early start.  Last night in Switzerland.