Rheinfall–Zürcher Oberland

The Rhine Falls, Europe’s mightiest waterfall, a thundering natural spectacle. Spectacle and tourist flurry are followed by space, tiny vineyards on southern slopes and the Thur with the flower-decorated, timber-framed houses of Andelfingen. Motorway construction made it possible: a major road has become a lovely long cycling path through forest and meadowland, accompanied by a suburban railway.

After you enter the town through an unspoiled, village district, Winterthur - Zurich’s rival - shows off its charm as a creative bike city. The winding Toss in a ravine, a pedal over the Weissling heights into a shallow valley and Pfäffikon. The Pfäffikersee, a tiny jewel of a lake on the edge of the industrialized Zurich hinterland: a surprising, unspoilt landscape marked by wide reed meadows, flat moorland with marsh clover and cotton grass and the calm surface of the water, an ideal habitat for a wealth of water birds.

South of up-and-coming Wetzikon, the landscape is shaped by unusual green hills, lengthy glacial drumlins fashioned by the Linth-Rhine glacier. After Rüti, the hills begin to grow, the ravines get deeper, the forests darker, the ascents steeper and views more impressive. In Goldingen people dig for gold, pilgrims have hiked over the Rickenpass for centuries. The pass got its first proper road in around 1800.