Nov 2008

So after the awesomeness that was the north face trail we packed the car and headed straight for Zermatt. Of course this is Switzerland and there are mountains everywhere, you can’t go anywhere straight.


Our station wagon beastie

We had to go over the Grimselpass to get there, nice roads, winding switchbacks and the best scenery on any drive I’ve been on (so Rach tells me, I was a bit preoccupied with the next bend).

Winding roads of the Grimselpass

We got to Zermatt (which you can’t drive to, you have to train) only to find all of the hotels were closed for the slow season break. We ended up trudging round all the hotels that were open for about 2 hours, me holding the packs and Rach darting in to wrangle a room. Of course we did eventually find place, but the real reason we had come (Matterhorn) was still hidden in mist.

The next day was a corker, bright blue skies and crisp mountain air. We hired a few bikes and proceeded to ride up a trail below the mountain. Immediately after leaving the town we got lost and confused, finding what we thought was a trial up and following it.

Easy climb… right.

Rach, taking it easy

Jamie, not taking it easy

Not the best idea to follow the hiking trail as you would have had to be the best freestyle mountain biker to even make it up the rock steps slowly. As you can see from the above photo I ended up carrying the bikes for most of the way.

Eventually tiring from carrying something that was supposed to carry me we turned around to go back down only to find the right trial up (I still maintain it was not clearly marked). But as we had wasted all our energy we gave it a miss and bolted back down to the town.

Down is so much easier

So we’d seen the Matterhorn and expended a little too much energy so back to our car and off we went to Lukerbad, 1 ½ hours away. We were happily surprised to find that it was a thermal resort town and proceeded to soak it up in one of the hot pool complexes.

Lukerbad

Eventually we had to give up our wee beastie car and get back onto public transport. So after a night in Lukerbad we drove back to Lausanne (where we had picked up the car 5 days before) and got a train to Geneva.

Hanging out at the massive fountain in Geneva

We had pretty high hopes for Geneva, and it was ok but didn’t really blow our minds. We shared a hostel room with this paranoid American guy. It was like he didn’t have any bags as they were all in lockup downstairs, slept in his clothes with his day bag still on. Like we were going to steal his t-shirt or something.

Rach made me do this ‘artistic’ shot

We walked past the United Nations and went to the Red Cross Museum. There’s not really to much more to do in Geneva.

Red cross museum

We’d been prompted by the price of trains in Switzerland and a need to be a bit more independent that we would hire a car. So after a quick night in Lausanne on the banks of Lake Geneva, and a confusing morning in the old part of Lausanne town (we are generally pretty good old town navigators but this place is a time warp), we hopped in our hire car beastie and headed for the mountains.

Well we didn’t go straight up but went through Gruyeres and to a cheese factory there (loving the free samples).


Can’t remember how heavy each one weighs but they are at least ½ meter in diameter and 15 cm thick.

We then went just down the road to the original Callier (Nestle) factory. It was ok, a bit of chocolate history and process and then out of nowhere just as you exit in an obscure corridor was a counter 10m long with all the different chocolates.

Note the excited look on Rach’s face


We didn’t need much dinner that night.

Just before tackling the Jaunpass, sugar high still in top gear.

On our first night, being the money scrapers that we are we just rocked up to a camping ground paid for tent sight and slept in the car. Not the best move, who knew Switzerland got so cold.

Hanging in the campground common room, as we didn’t have one ourselves.

Day two of our drive round Switzerland saw us go to the Interlaken / Jungfrau region. We stayed in Lauterbruten, a small low valley town below the Jungfrau mountains (Swiss Alps), which we couldn’t see as the mist was so thick.


We did go see a glacier waterfall network carved through the center of the mountains.

The next day and the mist was still hanging round and we decided it was better to just go for the alpine hike we wanted to do rather that hang around inside. So up the cable cars to the top valley towns (only accessible by cable cars, even for the locals) and off on the North Face hike.

Very eerie and very cold.

Instructions (click on video, pause and wait to load, press play)




We eventually started climbing higher and higher until we finally saw some blue sky.

Then a bit more blue sky and some close hills

And even more

And then suddenly the mist cleared and we were hit with the whole mountain range crystal clear in the bright blue sunshine. It was so awe inspiring and silent, easily the best thing we have done on trip so far.

Pretty hard to take a bad picture

After our walk we went up a series of cable cars to the Schittlehorn mountain station to get another view of the mountains. We ended up taking more pictures of the birds that circle the top than the mountains.

Hmmmm shall we walk down.

We really didn’t want to leave the area, that hike easily being the highlight of mine and Rach’s trip so far. But there was still more of Switzerland to see and not much time left to do it.

While not in Jura (region of France next to Switzerland) our first stop back in the French land was Dijon, ya know the mustard. We got to have a quick look round the city as we only stayed the one night. Which we spent having the best dinner out (a bottle of the best helped as well) then walked the tourist path the next day.


Standard French old town building

Mmmm food from the market

See told ya bout the mustard, (although the mustard museum had closed, sob. I was keen)

We only got a small slice

So when we were working back in Scotland I meet a student (Grégoire) from France working at my company on a holiday break. We got talking one day about our trip and he discovered we might be going to Dijon. “Oh,” he exclaimed “my parents live near there”. The next day he comes into work and says “I rang my mum last night and you can stay there when you pass through”……. Score

From Dijon we had a quick train to Dole and meet up with Grégoire and his mum, who took us to their awesome family house in Tavaux. It was so good staying with these guys, they had a real family atmosphere (6 kids tend to do that). Just seeing the day to day living of a real honest French family.

We did get some sights in when Grégoire (home from uni for the weekend) and his girlfriend took us out to the wee village of Beaume and Chateaux Chalon (again purchasing wine and cheese).

View from the Beaume abbey

Gotta love the way the French eat dinner, we were a bit concerned at the first dinner when everyone got only a small slice of a really nice quiche/flan dish. But they have this ‘weird’ concept of courses. Eg first up aperitifs (drink and snack), then main, then bread and cheese, then fruit, then desert and coffee (not to mention the wine). And this was for pretty much every meal, lunch and dinner. So we were more than quite full after our 3 days.

Family dinner


Me and the youngest (Pierre), who had a fascination with the haka.

Canals in Dole

So big ups to the Fromont family, you made our stay one to remember.
(See you in Corsica)

It’s just a wee tiny place, sandwiched between Germany, France and Belgium. But we thought it deserved a visit nonetheless.

As Luxembourg city is an expensive place it forced us to do something we’d only been thinking of doing, couch surfing. Really good experience, just send a request out to some people who live in the area and see if you get a reply. We got a call back from an Aussie couple who had just moved to Luxembourg a few months before.
The only downside to the whole couch surfing thing was having to be up and out of the house at 7 when the guys had to go to work, which was fine as it made us get out and do stuff. Like…………

A day trip out to viaden to see the châteaux on the hill side






Pictueresque, oh yes

Kinda the beauty of Luxembourg, you can take a quick bus ride out to a village and be on the opposite side of the country.

Other things Luxembourg offered up were the casemates, a network of tunnels and rooms under the old fort. We also did a walking tour, went to the modern art museum, natural history muse and I’m sure that we went to some other museum as well. We also needed a bit of normalcy so went to English speaking movie.

It was quite exciting underground


But all that jumping lead to a wee knock on the head

Back on couch surfing (if you have ever thought of doing it) the pro’s are, obviously you don’t have to pay any accommodation; there’s a kitchen to use, local knowledge (Dallas and Christen were a virtual information centre) and the company. Probably the best thing we did in Luxembourg was having dinner with like minded people over a bottle or two.