Biking the Mittelland Route – Stage 7 Yverdon to Lausanne
Stage 7, the last stage of the Mittelland Bike Route was 51 km and went from Yverdon to Lausanne. This was my least favorite stage of the trip as it had the most elevation changes and we ended up on busy streets more often than any other stage. It may be in part because of the drought and how dry and brown everything was, but I felt the scenery wasn’t as pretty as the other stages as well. However, it was great to finish and I am very glad we did it.
| Where: | Yverdon to Lausanne Canton Vaud, Switzerland |
| Train: | Zürich HB -> Yverdon – 1 hr 51 min Lausanne -> Zürich HB – 2 hr 15 min |
| What: | Mittelland Trail – Stage 7 Yverdon to Lausanne Red cycle path signs with a blue number 5 |
| Stats: | Length 53 km (46 km asphalted, 7 km natural surface), Ascent 500 m, Descent 560 m |
| Stage 1: Romanshorn to Wil (SG) Stage 2: Wil (SG) to Kloten Stage 3: Kloten to Aarau Stage 4: Aarau to Solothurn Stage 5: Solothurn to Ins Stage 6: Ins to Yverdon Stage 7: Yverdon to Lausanne |
Getting There
This trail starts near the Yverdon train station. When we finished stage 6, we left our bikes locked at the train station, so we didn’t need to bring the bikes on the train when we started stage 7. Happily, the bikes were still there, and so we were on our way.
After leaving the train station, the trail weaves through the old town of Yverdon. It was cute, but also very busy with traffic and pedestrians. The trail also made a lot of turns and we had to stop often to make sure we were going the right way. I think I might enjoy visiting Yverdon on foot a lot more than I did biking through it.
The Trail
After leaving Yverdon, the trail went through a lot of fields and farms, and a few small towns. We stopped in Chavorney, where parked our bikes at the train station and walked about five minutes to a restaurant called Chez Raph. I had the goat cheese, honey, almond, and arugula crêpe and my son had the classic ham and gruyere crêpe. Both were delicious.
As we rode though the crop fields, it was startling to see how dry everything was. It wasn’t all farms and fields. As we rode into La Sarraz, we got a very lovely view of la Sarraz castle. But after that, it was back to farms and fields.
I thought I would get better at taking pictures while biking as we went through the trip, but I feel like I got worse at it. I do think I took enough pictures to give an idea of what this stage was like.
The closer we got to Lausanne the more awkward the trail seemed to be. At one point the trail was a gravel path sandwiched between two rail lines. The forest section was the least smooth trail of the whole way. I’m glad I had a mountain bike and not a road bike for that part. I did like the vineyards we passed though. They were very pretty.
As we came into Lausanne, the roads got busier and more confusing so that was pretty much it for taking pictures.
Getting Back
As we were coming to the end of the trail, we got a little lost. When we saw a sign for the train station, we decided to just follow that instead. It might have been a mistake as the streets were very busy and it wasn’t easy cycling but in the end we got to the train station. Since we were done, instead of locking the bikes up, we took them to the SBB Counter and had our bikes shipped back to our local train station where we could pick them up two days later.
Usually, I end these posts with pictures of the train station, but I forgot to take those pictures, so instead, here are pictures of our dinner at Five Guys in Lausanne. A really fun way to end our trip!
Although this was my least favorite section of the trip, I did enjoy it and I am really glad that we did it. It felt really good to have biked the entire thing from the train station in Romanshorn to the train station in Lausanne. Now for some rest.
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