Off to Switzerland (August 30th - September 6th)

Roy, Simon and I had talked about a long trip for us sometime this summer but August found Roy with family plans and it just did not work out.  Then a plan developed to travel to Italy down the coast, cross the shoe and up the other into Austria.  Twenty days of travel would be needed.  Roy could leave on August 30th but this left me with too few days left before I had to return to the states so we made a compromise.

I would meet them at a camp site in the Loire valley on the first night where they would come from Normandy and I would travel south from Paris.  From there we would all three travel to Chamonix the next day.  Then from a point in Martigny we would split up where I would head to the Interlaken area in Switzerland and they would continue on for their 18 day trip through Italy.  I had been wanting to finish the year with a trip to Switzerland and this was the opportunity.

Camping was the order of the day to conserve expenditures.  We had grown used to this and it was not really a hardship.   I arrived first and had virtually the entire camp to select a campsite.  Here is my fully loaded bike just after I arrived.  The bike can easily carry all I need for a week or a month in the field. 

Roy and Simon arrived around 6 pm.  Here we all are in our first camp in Cosne-Cour-s-Loire.

Meals were simple.  We had canned meals which we heated up on our small burners.

Here we all are getting our burners ready to heat the meals.  Someone singed their eyebrows in a little incident which luckily we can joke about.  Roy and Simon are still on the road in Italy so I will let one of them tell that story when they get back.

The next morning, we drove east and stopped at Annecy which is a beautiful French town right along side a large mountain lake. 

Here we stopped to take a picture of the lake.

Luckily, we headed out in the morning deciding to stay on auto-route and N roads to shorten the time we would be on the road.  By the time we got to Annecy it was afternoon and we still had several hours of very technical driving through winding mountain roads and passes.  As it happened, it was not till around 6:00pm that we found our campsite a few miles from Chamonix.

Again, a campsite was chosen and this time it was in a deep valley. 

Simon had a friend that lived a kilometer from the camp site and here we all are in her back yard over looking the camp site.

It got chilly that night and the next morning when we headed out I spotted a thermometer in a small town that said 8 degrees C. which is about 46 degrees F.  With our riding gear on the only thing that got a little cool was our hands.  We had brought summer leather gloves and we should have also brought our winter ones as well. 

After a few hours on the road we stopped for a coffee.  I decided I wanted a patisserie too so we all got one.


Very good but that coffee stop cost us 30 Euro.  Very expensive when you don’t stay on budget.  But it was sooo good.

Here we are getting close to the point where we split up.  Roy and Simon had come with me part way into Switzerland because they wanted to avoid the super long and boring tunnel at Chamonix that leads them into Italy.  Coming with me this way put them over into Italy on one of the most beautiful passes in the area. 

A close up of the valley.  This is Martigny and our paths will divide at the first round-about in town.  I head off further into Switzerland.  I figure it will take me 4 or 5 hours to get to my destination which would be the Interlaken area. 

I said good by to them and they headed off.  I stopped along the way for this picture.

Here I stopped on route for a quick picture of the beautiful landscape.  Everywhere you turn in Switzerland is a picture perfect moment.

A little further on two girls on a Honda CBT600 stopped by the road and were taking pictures of each other.  I stopped to offer a shot of both of them.  They then took this of me.  Hey – I was going to stop anyway. 

Bad light on me but background is good.

Hmm.  What happened to the road?

 

I reached Interlaken and set up camp along the lake.  Here was my view from the tent.

As this was my third day in the field, I had one more full day before I needed to return to Paris.  The trip home would take another two days.  I decided to spend that day touring around the Lauterbrunnen Valley and Grindelwald.  Both of these destinations were only about 20 miles from camp but with all the neat small roads to explore this took me the entire day. 

Here are some shots from that day’s travel.  A water fall, one of dozens cascading down the cliffs is seen here at the edge of town.

I reached a mountain pass where I could go no further so decided to treat myself to lunch at the restaurant located at the top of the mountain.  As I set at the table I took some pictures of the area surrounding me.

Lunch was a cheese fondue which you dipped bits of bread and potatoes in – a local Swiss treat. Delicious and filling.

I headed back out down the mountain road and decided to take a very small one-lane road back up in another direction.  Each hair pin turn seemed like it went up 45 degrees.  Very tight turns and lots of attention to driving was needed.  On one of the few flatter areas, I stopped to rest and took another pic.

A look back down the road I just came up.

I finally came to a tunnel entrance that continued as a one lane road through it.  I was questioning my sanity at this point as I had no idea how long the tunnel was or what you did if you met on-coming traffic.

There were very few lights in the tunnel (about 1 in every 100 meters) and it looked more like a mining tunnel once you proceeded in to it.  Every ¼ mile there was a y-junction that if you followed it you wound up on the side of the mountain where the road ended into a hiking path. The tunnel turned out to be about a mile long and very creepy once inside.  There were no road markings of any kind.  I did see lights twice and found myself facing on-coming traffic.  I pulled over and we passed safely but not easily.

So, at the end of the day I headed back to camp.  My Swiss trip was coming to an end.  The ride back into Eastern France, the next day was also a planned part of the trip as the roads and views were spectacular.  I drove west along the northern edge of the lakes but since I was making good time and heading home I just kept on moving with no pictures from that day. 

I spent the next night at Besançon in an ETAP hotel.  I needed a good bath and a good bed for a night so I treated myself.  Then, the next day, it was just hitting the auto-route back to Paris where I arrived about 1:00 pm today.

So, that is my last trip for this year.  I have traveled over 14,000 km this summer and it has been great fun.  Still, I have not seen even ½ of France so lots to do when I come back.

I clean the bike up tomorrow and park it for the winter.  I will pick up the travel again next year when I return.