This year I targetted a list of 14 Swiss rides with a few stretch
goals. My primary goals were my three remaining
Swiss paved roads of the 20 highest in the the Alps - #12 Nufenen
2478m, #14 St
Bernard Pass 2469m, and #20 Oberaarsee 2390m. Beyond that the
rest of my
targetted rides were all above 2200m, roughly the 53 highest paved
roads in the Alps. A few Swiss rides above
2200m are in
places I'd already backpacked or been very near over the last decade -
Lac de Moiry near Sion,
Täschalp near Zermatt,
and Mattmarksee near
Saas Fee. I decided I didn't need to ride busy roads in
relatively crowded locations where I'd already backpacked, the
point of cycling the Alps is to be alone in the mountains. I
changed my itenerary a few times before adding a detour to the Bernese
Alps /
Mürren in between the lower (Martigny) and upper (Oberwald) Rhone
valley. I finally
realized that I hadn't been to Mürren
since 2005 and a return trip was long overdue.
I ended up rebooking my flight to Switzerland to get a business class
seat on Swiss for 75k miles one way, my first ever splurge for business
class. Swiss has a
2-2-1 configuration in business class. I reserved the last
window seat 7k in the front row.
There was an empty seat next to me, but if someone took it I'd need to
climb over someone to get in and out of my seat. According
to ThePointsGuy and seatguru, the single seat is
nicknamed the 'throne' and costs $220 more to reserve in advance,
though I read online that unsold thrones become bookable for free 48
- 24 hours before departure. Many Swiss Business flyers feel
the throne is awful and clausterphobic since the not very wide seat
feels more like
a sarcophagus when in a lie flat configration, but I was undeterred
and was excited that I was able to change my seat to seat 8k 24 hours
before departure.
I rebooked my return flight from Switzerland to fly connect from
Zurich to Munich so I could fly back to SFO on a Lufthansa 747-8.
This broke my own rule about not connecting in another European
country this year. I was very excited to be able to fly a 747
since there
are so few
airlines still flying them. I choose 45J, a window seat in the
back with no middle seat (2-4-2), so I'd only need to climb over one
other person to get in and out of my seat..
For the first time ever, I took out trip insurance at the last minute -
it cost around $250, including an extra $4 that fully covered
electronics like an iPhone.