Switzerland

Arriving in Switzerland to a beautiful day that then turned to rain and sunshine again. The city of Geneva borders a lake, and that same lake is also the Italian border. It was busy with sailing boats, tourist boats and the like. There is a huge water fountain, the Jet D'Eau that works all day, every day of the year squirting water some 100 feet into the air.

We had a stroll around the water front area of the city and then headed to our accommodation which was a mobile home, but what we would call a cabin, in a motor camp in a place called Camping du Bois-Noir.  Rain clouds put us off the tent, and it rained quite heavily through the night. We watched the soccer, Brazil v Chile. 

A bit of a sleep in as the rain was a bit of a deterant, but finally packed up and headed towards the alps.

We took the St Bernard route over the Alps. It was a dreary day but the views were still spectacular. The road is open to cars during the summer months, but in winter you must put you car aboard a train and travel via a rather long tunnel. There were also many tunnels on our route up to the train station. It would be an impressive sight covered in snow. In the lower valleys there were many villages, and some quite high up the slopes. The border into Italy was near the top of the pass, which also had a large hotel that used to be a hospice back in the early 1900's. There was also a man made lake at the top next to the hotel and border crossing; which are very uneventful.

I was also surprised to see grapes and apricots being grown so close to the alps on the Swiss side. 

In the last few days we have gone from temperatures of 30 plus to a low of 5 degrees. We were pleased with the drive today as we were unsure of the route and were prepared to turn back, however everything worked out fine.