Rapperswil; Friday, 21 April, 2023

A relaxed start to the day at the hotel with a decent length lie in and a late breakfast before it was time to check out of one hotel and make my way over to the second one. Unlike the previous evening I stepped onto the tram platform just as one was arriving so I was on my way right away heading towards the city centre. At the Hauptbahnhof I changed onto the local suburban lines and caught the train down to Jona.

The hotel I was staying at was equidistant between Rapperswil and Jona stations – themselves being less than a mile apart – so it made as much sense to get off one stop early and walk down the ever so slight slope to the hotel than stay on and walk the slight slope up from Rapperswil.

All checked in to the hotel I dropped off my stuff and then headed out towards town to have a look around, with my first stop being the banks of the Obersee.

The Obersee is actually just the upper part of Lake Zurich with a causeway having been built at the narrowest point to make access between Rapperswil on the East bank and Pfäffikon on the West bank more convenient, but these days the causeway is seen as a dividing point between the lower, and much larger, part of Lake Zurich which takes on the full Zürichsee name and this smaller upper portion that’s normally called the Obersee (or upper lake).

After having a bit of a wander around the lake edge I headed over to the Holzbrücke. The Holzbrücke is a wooden bridge that has been located on this site since at least medieval times creating a link across the lake long before the causeway was built, though the current incarnation only dates to 2001 when it was reconstructed after a near 200 year absence. The bridge also links to the Heilig Hüsli a very small chapel that until the bridge was rebuilt was on an island by itself.

At the other end of the bridge is the railway station of Hurden and from here I picked up the train one stop further on to Pfäffikon to take in the other channel of the Zürichsee and the full width of the bottom of the lake. At Pfäffikon I turned round and headed back to Rapperswil, this time being able to take in the view over the causeway to the Holzbrücke and the Obersee.

Back in Rapperswil I had a bit of a wander around the old town taking in some of the historic buildings before heading back to the hotel to freshen up before popping out for an early dinner.