Well good news to all those following the blog, I found a good shower in Switzerland, hooray! Switzerland is probably the most beautiful country I have seen. It is mountainous and spectacular in its contrasts, but holey CRAP is it expensive! We spent our first 2 nights staying with one of Dids’ very good friends Helen in Zurich. I had been told that Zurich was a very livable town and getting around it, it is very easy to see why. The town itself is situated in a basin surrounded by the Alps and right in the middle you will find a great big aqua-marine coloured lake which frames the setting very well. There is an older portion of town where you will find a heap of historical sites all in mint condition, I was amazed by the age of some of the places they were looking that good.
Don’t expect to eat in Switzerland however, it is really that expensive. With the Swiss being such a good bunch of conservative fence sitters they managed to avoid the trend of moving to the Euro as their national currency and retained their Swiss Frank instead. The conversion rate for one Swiss Frank to one Aussie dollar is nearly one is to one, so keeping track of costs was easy. For example, chicken breast is $45 per kg, steak is $55+ per kg and marsh mellows, yes marsh mellows are $4.50 for a standard pack! Helen’s average working day in Switzerland is 10 to 12 hours, I guess for obvious reasons!
People are a little crazy in Switzerland as well. Immediately you notice their premeditated compulsion to bash into you in the street while you are walking, in the car while you are driving and in Dids’ case in the supermarket with a trolley while you are trying to shop! Zurich is in the German part of Switzerland and it must be something to do with that. You definitely notice their need to organize all as well as their more than apparent need to uphold social standards. I actually saw a parking inspector take about 15 minutes to write up a ticket for an illegally parked car because he had to run his tape measure over every aspect of its location which I am sure was to get ever cent out of the poor blighter.
It is always welcomed on a trip like this (not that I have made many) to find out nice little things about your partner. What I have found out about Dids is that she has the ability to control the most unforeseen things. Example: all she needs to do is say something like “I really came here to see castles” and the next thing, bam there is a castle, despite me looking for the last half hour for one! At first I thought, sure just a coincidence, well….not any more. It has worked for the craziest things and all in the weirdest of places. I have been putting in requests for gold but I really don’t think she’s trying. And as much as I love you babe (she hates me calling her babe!), saying that I am all the gold you need does not put an Audi on my front door step. One thing is definite though, the superstition of it all has me hoping she keeps thinking well of me otherwise this could get interesting…
After our time in Zurich, minus the gold, we decided to head south for Zermatt, a little town at the base of the Matterhorn (a really big famous mountain as seen in a James Bond movie On Her Majesties Secret Service). This was our revised destination after my request for traveling to Lichtenstein (a really small country bordering Switzerland) so that I could fulfill my boyhood dream of driving through an entire country from start to finish drunk (as a passenger mum chill out!) was rejected by Dids as silly. What a disappointment…… Well moving on from this crushing blow, wasn’t traveling to Zermatt interesting! To get there you have to pass over the top of the Alps and unfortunately we found the last leg of our chosen route (the literal last 5 km!) closed due to a heavy snow falls. This forced us to concede to backtracking a massive portion of our travels, but on the plus side I got to see proper snow for the first time in my 29 and a half year life (pathetic to some I know). And I threw a snow ball, or two, awesome! They might have been aimed at the car, and Dids might have yelled at me….
Second ever....
This closure though turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we decided to set up tent for the night in a little town called Areschlucht just below the blocked pass. Check out the photos to see what I believe to be one of the coolest camp sites you’ll ever see!
The campground....
To top this experience off, we found a communal fire pit down by a nearby glacial river. The added bonus to it all was that with the town being so small and remote, we had it totally to ourselves, how romantic. The fire pit was a big stone affair with a suspended metal grill plate above the fire, some chairs and a table, a fresh spring feeding a big one piece granite trough (good for keeping the beers chilled) and best of all a massive stock of chopped, neatly stacked, free to use pine fire wood. This all made for an absolutely huge camp fire cook up right in the middle of the Swiss Alps, unforgettable!
The next day, after thawing out and me taking back everything I have previously said about Dids’ choice in -10 degree C rated sleeping bags, we headed off to explore some local glacial caverns on foot which was a nice change from the incessant driving of the previous day. As you can see the scenery was nice, quite a difference from sunny ol’ Australia.
Packing up again (which I am becoming a gun at), we headed out with thoughts of hitting Italy, but lazily we pulled up just shy of the Swiss border in a place called Lugarno. The camp site there like all the previous ones we have visited was absolutely gorgeous. It was situated in a valley right on a beautiful aqua marine lake with a little jetty etc. Obviously we camped right next to the water and hung out dangling our feet over the edge of the jetty contemplating the tastiness of all the fish we could see. Mmmm tasty fish.
Another castle
The next day we actually made it to Italy. Well, isn’t Italy a little different from Switzerland! We first really noticed this at the border crossing where the police took a ridiculous amount of time just to check our passports and yabber on to each other. There were 10 guys there to do the job of 4 (maybe less) and making their job even more blasé was that everyone with an Italian license plate just got waved through without a care… The Italians seem very good at being disorganized (and slack); their driving is a testament to this! There are soooo many vespas, motor bikes etc here and they simply do what they like in the most insane manner. Wrong way down the road at 80km per hour into oncoming traffic, yes please! And they are angry, OH so angry! I just want to jam one of those little nancy sounding horns into their somewhere very private the next time they get the urge to toot at us! I know we are cruising around in a little ford fiesta, but in terms of road safety, they are still more temporary than us.
One thing that has got me in love so far with Italy though is their food! Heaps and heaps is what they like to serve and surprise, surprise it is exactly what I like to take! I will not go hungry in this country mum, and you will be pleased to know that so far the food has all been tasty. I really do look forward to experiencing more as we travel Italy for the next 2 weeks (maybe more).
At the end of our first day in Italy we pitched tent in the little village of Tellaro on the Italian Riviera at a delightful campground named Gianna. The campground was set up into terraces and we managed to snag a top one overlooking the Mediterranean as you can see from the photo.
The campground is expensive but is equipped with a really big pool, bar and restaurant which serves up delicious food. Night time brings out the fire flies and makes the whole experience a little surreal as we sit around a borrowed table by candle light. You listening lads, that’s how you do it for your lady!
Yesterday we made a trip to Le Chinque Terra, a group of 5 rustic villages perched on the Mediterranean coastline, each famous for their little cobbled streets, old buildings with terraces and churches. Our preferred mode of travel for this experience was a boat. Basically I’ll leave it to the photos to explain how nice the whole day actually was.
Summary: Italy is such a cruisy place once you embrace the mayhem, vespas and max out on the food. We have set the mood to aaaaahhhhhhh……and we’ll see how it all pans out.
Dids knitting me a beanie for South America
OMFG! I can't believe you put those photos of me up here! You are officially banned! The one with the pizzas is where I was being attacked by pigeons hence the crazed look. I can't explain the other looks just yet. Argg! So much trouble Mr Couse...
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