y ogb europe 2006 page 5

The trouble with a roadtrip such as this is that you arrive at a place that you get a real feel for, get to really like it, then after a couple of days have to move on. It happened in the Dordogne and now the experience is being repeated here in Chamonix, where we both agreed we could have spent a week at least! We're finding it really hard to tear ourselves away from here. Nevertheless, go we must so the GPS is set, the Eunos is now packed up once again and we're off, having pointed it's nose towards Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

Leaving Mont Blanc & Chamonix behind. On the road to Lake Lucerne via the Forclez, Furka and Gothard passes

Unfortunately, the storms we had in Tournon and once again in Chamonix last night have done nothing to alleviate the humidity and heat. So here we are driving towards Switzerland, sweating like a pair of Morrocan's sandals in a sauna! Even GPS man is feeling the heat now I think. I set him up not to take us on any motorways in Switzerland, so what does he do? As soon as we cross the border at Martigny he puts us straight on the A9 - a 30 mile stretch of finest 3 lane black top and we have no vignette! He's a spiteful bastard sometimes.

Martigny end of the Col de Forclez. Last time I was here we were on motorbikes going in
the opposite direction - 9-30 at night in freezing cold rain. This is nicer!

A vignette? It's an anuual sticker you can buy at the border crossings into Switzerland which allows you to drive on the A/routes there for a period of 12 months. The Swiss don't have "Peage" toll booths like the French, where you pay as you go. As we intend using only the back roads we haven't bought one, it seemed a waste of 40 Euros at the time. Problem is if you get caught on an Autoroute without one - it means a fine of 100 Euros plus the cost of the Vignette. We try getting off it but it's useless, we have no map of Switzerland, only the one in the GPS and that keeps on returning us to the damned A/route. It's Sunday and there's nowhere else open to buy one so there's nothing for it but to bite the bullet and take the chance, otherwise we'll never to get to Lucerne. The next 30 miles are spent sweating more than I was before - in case a police car comes along! Oh, and bit of advice about Switzerland, unlike the UK the signpost colours are reversed. Autoroutes are maked by GREEN signs and the other routes by BLUE ones. Worth bearing in mind.

Looking from the Col de Forclez into Switzerland.
That valley is over 30 miles long, the A9 Autoroute runs every inch of it and we drove it all with no Vignette

We've reached the end of the A9 A/route at last and I heave a sigh of relief at not being caught. It's not the fine that bothered me but the fact that the Swiss police are a bit draconian, and will have a foreign car (especially one with GB plates!) delayed for ages while they go through all the paperwork with fine tooth comb - It's too hot here for that nonsense today. Anyway, now we can relax and enjoy the drive up to Lucerne.

In no time we've reached Gletsch where the Grimsel Pass joins the Furka, looking down on the roads from here looks like someone's dropped a bowl of spaghetti on the side of the mountains! Up to now we've been relying on my memory of the order of towns: Brig - Gletsche - Andermatt etc to get us along the Furkastrasse, because the GPS has been having problems with the Swiss mapping for some reason. So far since leaving the A/route it's already led us to an industrial estate in Brig, and tried once more to put us on a small section of Autoroute near Gamsel. The A road here goes through a tunnel but it was closed so we were diverted anyway fortunately. After Gletsch I decide to switch it back on to see how we go, we could do with it working properly really because after Andermatt there are more A/routes there which we need to try and avoid. Wee Jimmy shows a lot of concern and understanding though........She's sat eating a peach!

Gletsch, where the Furka & Grimsel passes meet. The Furka is in the foreground and the Grimsel is the
twisty one going off up to the right. Driver / riders paradise or what? If you're going to do this in any car,
then the Eunos is the one to do it in, it loved it here.

Climbing out of Gletsch towards Realp. The Furka "proper" starts here so there aren't too many decent photos of this bit, I
was too busy enjoying the drive, so if you want to see it you'll have to come here yourself!

The Urseren Valley and Realp from just east of Tiefenbach, looking towards Anderamatt in
the far distance where we're headed, and the Oberalp Pass beyond that.

At Tiefenbach the road starts to descend until it reaches Realp, then it runs along the floor of the Urseren Valley, the most incredible valley I've ever seen outside of a film set! This is so "chocolate box" I can't even bring myself to stop and take a photo, (which in retrospect I should have done). We pass through little Swiss villages that are so cliche'd that if you were shown a picture of them you'd laugh. In between the villages little Swiss chalets dot the hillsides to our left and to our right. If you didn't know better you'd swear that it had all been laid on just for the tourists. All we need is the Von Trapp family singing about "Doughy Deers" and "Lonely Goat Turds" and we'd have the complete set!

We've reached Andermatt now and we have a problem, the GPS has sent us the wrong way along the Gothard Pass. We thought it was sending us around the town but now instead of heading for Andermatt and Altdorf, we're on our way to Italy! It's only about 20 miles to the border from here, and we consider going just to say we've been, but time is moving on and we need to get to Merlischachen on Lake Lucern and our next hotel. Sometimes you just have to be a bit boring, so we've turned around! Now the GPS is trying once more to get us on the Autoroute. I stop to re-programme it and off we go again.

Everything's fine until we get to the other side of Andermatt and GPS man seems to have found a new hobby, instead of motorways he's now favouring mountain passes and sends us off along the Sustenpass. I mention to Wee Jimmy that it may just end up being a permanent feature of the next wrong road it takes us along!

After turning around once again we're now going in the direction of Altdorf, which we find no problem just by following sign posts.....now there's a novel idea! The thing is we need the GPS to find the hotel, so I turn it back on. There are no passes or motorways here now, so what can possibly go wrong? Everything's going ok now, GPS man has settled down and seems to be behaving, we've just a few more miles to go. Then he tells us to turn left at the next junction and announces our destination - the hotel is, "Straight ahead in 1000 feet" ........That makes it in Lake Lucerne then? We do eventually find it about 2 miles further up the road!

I wasn't going to put the next photo of our hotel, "The Hotel Swiss Chalet" (no kidding!) on here in case we got laughed at. I mean look at the place, and I was worried about finding it without the GPS - silly me! You couldn't miss this place if it was in middle of Swisschaletville, it just kind of leaps out at you when you're not expecting it. It's a nice hotel but it feels like we're walking into Santa's workshop, a few ruddy faced gnomes would have made the experience complete.....I'll drop them a line and mention it. It's Different I suppose! It's got a nice fan in the room though which has now become our newest best friend - we're getting to be such fan tarts......................

"Lovely Morning Wee Jimmy?"
"Yes Old Git Biker, it certainly is"
"Shall we toddle off for brekkers old thing?"
"Yes dearest, lets do just that".....................

An hour later and we're on the road to the city of Lucerne.........Well, to be precise we're on a shit covered farm track trying to turn round because the heffin' GPS man has told us to turn up here! I swear to God he's going in the lake soon. We eventually find the bit of Lucerne we want without him - it's very nice here so I'm told.

We've parked the car in Hades! Otherwise known as "Bahnhofparking" an immense underground car park near the boat jetty in the town. The heat down here - well it's hot as hell, I'm surprised we've not bumped into Beelzebub himself. Talk about the bowels of the earth! Horrible place, lets get out of here to some fresh....erm heat! It's still bloody hot & humid here by the way.

Lucerne? Odd place, some of the old buildings are beautiful, but most of them have modern shop fronts slung onto them. A bit insensitive really given the history of the place and it's architectural heritage. It must be said though that the expensive posh tat shops do a very nice window display............nice to see where their priorities lie!

Lucerne isn't an unattractive town, but I was bit disappointed with a few aspects of it. For instance there's an old wooden bridge here, not the famous Chapelbridge, this is another one further along the river whose name I'm not even going to attempt to spell. I have a rule, if you can't say it, then don't even try to spell it! It dates from 1408 so it's pretty old. At some point recently the pontoons which support it have been replaced, not with nice bits of designed brick or wood as befits such a thing. No, some soul less git has deemed it right and proper to sit it on bloody great ugly concrete slabs that look like breeze blocks on steroids. Now call me hypercritical or whatever but I think that's the act of a callous philistine, they'd have been better off letting the poor old thing slide peacefully into the river if that's all they think of it.

Then there's the river, It would be a bit more attractive without the supermarket trolley, the old bike and the polystyrene boxes that someone's lobbed in there........ I'm a bit worried about the polystyrene because the swans are trying to eat it and I'm not sure it's part of their staple diet. And there's me thinking the Swiss are a clean race who look after their environment! But hey, I'm only a ragarse from Liverpool so what do I know?

Despite GPS man trying to send us via Kazakhstan and Outer Mongolia, we make it to Koblenz ok and soon we've crossed the border into Germany. The instant our GPS map is changed from Switzerland to Germany it works fine! Wee Jimmy and me discuss the theory, that the Swiss government are in league with the people who design the Swiss mapping programmes. If they can coerce everyone with a GPS to stray onto the A/routes without buying a vignette then they'll make a killing in revenue from fines. Forget men on the Moon and the assassination of JFK - that's our very own conspiracy theory!

After contending with a monumental thunderstorm that's forced us to put the hood up, we arrive in Schluchsee (try saying that after few beers) and our next hotel the Hotel Sternen. This is Germany so we know the hotel will be good, and we're not disappointed. It's not just a room we have here, it's a suite - separate dining / living area, bedroom and a bathroom that's bigger than our house. This is class, and it's costing very little more than the Heartbreak hotel we stayed at in Tournon sur Rhone!

The Hotel Sternen, Schluchsee - that's our balcony, the top one on the gable end

A new day dawns and we're looking forward to getting out and exploring the Black Forest, a walk would be good. "Oh bugger, it's raining" Wee Jimmy has just looked out of the window, I thought it was cooler in bed last night. If cooler means wetter then bring it on, I'm sick of my clothes hanging off me like a damp dishcloth. Slight change of plan then - go back to bed for bit, stagnate for a while. Go for a late breakfast and see what the weather's doing later........................

..........It's still raining, in fact the sky is getting blacker by the minute so we're now we're in the car - hood up on our way to Lake Titisee. Now there's an odd place! A little town - well no more than a village really has sprung up around the lake. I suppose it's about as tourist driven as it gets around here. There are lots of little gift shops - and when I say lots I mean LOTS! The thing is they're all selling the same Teutonic crap, I've never seen so many bloody cuckoo clocks in one place in my life. And what's with the Witches? They all sell them as well - scary little Witch dolls everywhere we look. Every shop we go in is a clone of the last, selling exactly the same things at the same prices, with the same little carbon copy shopkeepers it's like a German version of Royston Vasey. You've got to ask the question, how the hell do they all make a living in the face of such market saturation? There's not that many people in the world who want a cuckoo clock anyway! Maybe it's all funded by E.U subsidies or the Gnomes of Zurich or something! They need to be careful not to over produce or we'll end up with a European cuckoo clock "mountain"

We're hungry now so we pop into a shop where there's a guy cooking stuff on a huge wok thing. 4-50 Euros later and we're tucking into a big plate of fried spuds, bratwurst sausage and bacon - t'is excellent. He's the only sane man in the place, but even he looks like a fat version of the piggy eyed banjo boy from the film "Deliverence!" So I guess it's surprising we haven't died of gutrot or something equally disgusting after eating the grub he cooked! ............"Squeal like a piggy boy!"

We sneak off and head back to the hotel for tea before anyone notices us and locks us in their cellar! A few hours later we're sitting in the Beer Keller bar next to the hotel - Tomorrow is another day

Because it's not actually raining today, but looks like it might we take another run out in the car. This time the GPS is set for some unknown village out in the Black Forest somewhere, chosen only for the reason I like the sound of it's name - Albbruck, it's the double 'B' that does it. It was actually a very good choice because we're seeing some lovely Black Forest scenery here. Then, I spot a sign, "Wasserfall", I like a good waterfall so we follow it. We follow it for miles, through a little village, then out into a long valley. Eventually we come to it:.... A hotel called the "Wasserfall!" I feel a bit daft to be honest, Wee Jimmy gives a sort of "Hrrmmmpphh" noise and goes back to looking out of the window.

This means that because we're on a narrow road, I have to find somewhere to turn the car round. We find a bit of a car park thing, and I'm just making for the exit when I spot another "Wasserfall" sign nailed to a tree. There is a waterfall after all! Wee Jimmy's not impressed, it's one thing being dragged miles looking for a wasserfall in the car but this now involves walking, what if there was no wasserfall after walking miles?
"It's a chance we have to take dearest" I said.
"We can't come all the way to the Black Forest without seeing a wasserfall now can we?" I added! ..............I got 2 Hrrrrrmmmmphs!

We've now left the wasserfall behind, Wee Jimmy's stopped Hrrrmmppph-ing and we're carrying on to Albbruck, it's a nice little run and the roads around here are fantastic. Just before reaching the town we enter a gorge with about 5 tunnels. The road is a bit narrow to stop to get photos but I do anyway!

We stop for a spot of lunch in a bar at Albbruck, and as the weather's now getting brighter we've decided to head back to the hotel and have a walk down to the lake at Schluchsee.

Well, that's the best part of the tour over, after a very touristy ride on the boat around the lake, the following morning we leave Schluchsee with happy memories, and appreciation for a superb hotel run by lovely people. Now we have to get back to Calais and it's a long long way north. We have an overnight stay at Trier in Northern Germany, then another at St Omer in Northern France, it's handy for the early morning ferry back to Dover on Saturday. I'll finish off with a few remaining photos and in depth coverage of our journey north to Calais..............

It's raining. The hotel in Trier has no bar and it's miles out of town - I'm upset!

It's raining heavier. The hotel in St Omer is ok but staff are crap. We make the ferry in time

A few facts.......

Camera we used is an old Sony DSC-P8 3.2 Megapixel compact with spot metering.

The wee car is a 1994 Eunos Roadster (Japanese Import) 1.8 Special Edition

2,636 miles were covered on the trip. The Eunos used no oil, or water and never missed a beat.

Approximately 2,300 of those miles were covered with the top down, the rest of the time it poured!

We used a lot of petrol! (and we drank a lot of Ricard and Leffe as well)

The Toyo tyres were superb over the mountain passes and excellent on the rain soaked motorways - as were the Gen Mazda replacement brake discs and E.B.C "Green Stuff" brake pads. (they made a hell of mess of the white wheels though)

The hood never let in even a drop of the deluges we encountered

Wee Jimmy never got behind the wheel once. Her excuse? .................. "I'm on holiday, and besides I've got a sore foot - somebody ran over it!"

It took me best part of day to clean just the wheels when we got home, the black brake dust was baked on

Wee Jimmy enjoyed it heaps, she was great company and stand in navigator when GPS man went AWOL
(Did I say that right dear?)