A short 50 mile blat on some lovely clear roads got me to the Swiss border, with the flat plains of France starting to get hilly. Found my first hairpin, floored it in second, back-end snaked about - awesome!
Decided to stop at the pretty town of Goumois and, by chance, it was right on the Swiss border:
The next 70 miles were amazing - beautiful roads snaking up the hills, along valleys, fields of sunflowers, swooping eagles (?) and all with huge mountains looming in the distance. I just hope my video camera got it all because I didn't want to stop to take pictures.
I had a bit of brain fade because my sat-nav started taking me on roads with blue signs, which I thought were motorways, so I kept trying to follow green signs. Sadly, green signs in Switzerland are motorways and as I didn't have a vignette, if I'd been stopped, I'd probably be writing this from jail.
So I had 30 miles of confusion but when I worked it out, after subjecting 2 old ladies to my O-level French, I got back on route and came to the amazingly beautiful Thunersee, a huge lake fringed by hills and the mountains to the south:
The road along it's northern edge is slow but beautiful, with a short section reminiscent of those famous French Riviera roads, with overhanging cliffs on one side and azure blue on the other. I had to show a local in a Renault what true handling was - he just about kept up on the straights but vanished backwards on the bends. Or maybe it was all in my head and he was worried the crazy Englishman was about to lose a wheel from his clown car.
On the slow but beautiful climb up to Grindelwald behind a truck, my temperature gauge suddenly hit 100 and my HP fuel pump sounded like it was on its last legs. With the engine off and ignition on, I couldn't hear my fan. After arriving at the hotel, the fuse was ok so I've swapped relays to see if that is the problem- I'll check tomorrow.
Hotel room is very basic but the view from the terrace more than makes up for it:
My guide for the week, Graham, arrived shortly afterwards. He has routes planned out for the next few days, so looking forward to that.
Oh yeah, my head is now seriously burnt.
Video of the first 2 days:
Map of today's route:
Great post. Following in envy.
ReplyDeleteYou’re having all the fun. Carry on.
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