On the Road Again.....through the Alps!

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Getting into Geneva was no problem and we picked up a rental car this time. Got to our hotel within about 20 minutes, sat and chatted with the guys that Kirk works with for a little bit, and then hit the sack.

The next morning, the guys were working until 3 and then heading over to another part of Switzerland where the factory was located. Since we had two cars, I headed out around noon on my own since I knew we were headed into a pretty section of the mountains to a little ski resort town in the Alps. I thought I'd get there early and have a chance to look around and take some pictures.

The only thing about driving is you can't really enjoy much of the scenery, especially when you're driving in unfamiliar territory with signs in an unfamiliar language, and a totally new method of traffic management! Switzerland uses a lot of roundabouts, not that we don't have some too, but they use them in place of most street lights. It can get pretty hairy when you're trying to figure out which exit out of the roundabout you need to take and the other drivers aren't overly patient or tolerant with your inexperience. lol There is a protocol that goes something like this.....if you step on the pedal and think you can get in in front of me (whoever is in the circle already has the right of way), then keep that pedal to the medal or I'll run you over! lol If you're exiting right away, you stay in the outer portion of the roundabout and if you're going farther around, you move towards the inner portion, leaving room for people to merge in which also means sometimes you have to cut right back in front of them to get out! It's a bit crazy and takes some getting used to. Add to that the fact that the GPS horribly mispronounces the names and even the mispronounciation doesn't look like the spelling, so I learned that the best way to get through a round about is ignore which exit she tells you to take and just follow the pink line on the screen.....but this took about half a dozen roundabouts to figure out! Frustrating? yes! Scary? A bit! lol

Eventually I got the hang of it by just holding the GPS in my hand as I was going through the roundabout....which works really well until you get a phone call right in the middle of a roundabout and you're driving a stick shift and the next thing you know the GPS cord is wrapped tightly around the steering wheel! So you tell the person to hold on as you calmly proceed to the next possible place to pull over which also isn't always the easiest thing to find. lol

Driving through Switzerland is actualy fairly easy once you get out on the highways. Their highways are much like ours, the exits work the same (if you can read where you're headed), and they drive pretty fast, so you learn to just stay in the slow lane if you're not willing to drive 140 kilometers(+) per hour, about 87 mph or thereabouts. 120ish was about my comfort zone....right around 75. 😊 Anyway, remember the song Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple? Well, I drove through the town of Montreux which is where the fire happened that inspired the song, so naturally I had that song stuck in my head for a while.

Driving through the mountains, I was amazed at the agriculture that is so dominant in the landscape and way up into the mountains! I mean on inclines that you'd have a hard time standing upright without some sort of aid. You'll see it in some of the pictures, but I couldn't believe they were actually growing crops up there. And all kinds of crops.....hay, corn, sunflowers and after a certain point, predominantly grapevines. We did stop and take pictures along some of the grapevines on our way back to Geneva a few days later and even standing on the side with a railing to lean against, you didn't look too far down!

The resort town we're staying in Monday night is called Crans-Montana....actually two small Swiss villages that are right next to each other...one Crans, the other Montana but the region is called Crans-Montana. The last 45 minutes of the trip is straight up the mountain with hair pin curves and switchbacks (and tiny little guardrails). Finally reaching the top, it's a picture perfect Swiss ski resort....sorta like our Colorado ski resorts, I guess....rustic, wood hewn chalets with the hanging flowers and window boxes, snow capped mountains, real estate offices in cute strip malls selling chalets starting at a mere 600,000 Francs....(Francs are pretty even exchange for dollars right now) and on up into the several million. But it was beautiful, that's for sure!

I was a few hours ahead of the guys so I checked into the hotel, cute little hotel on a lake called Hotel du Lac, and fortunately the lady at the front desk spoke English. Actually, we learned later that she spoke four languages fluently! English, French, Italian and German. It made me feel a bit lazy as a nation as most people we ran into spoke at least two languages....their own and English, and many spoke multiple languages. The room was small but quaint. The beds in Switzerland are low and kinda like platform beds, but a bit softer than Italy, so that was an improvement. No frills, but everything we needed for a very reasonable $80 rate for a single room, though double that for a double room...and that's not two beds necessarily, that's just two people.

So I dropped off the bags and took out for a walk around town. There were some nice paths connecting the two towns and though most of the shops were open, I didn't do any shopping, just kinda took it all in and snapped pictures here and there. I imagined what it would be like with deep layers of snow covering everything and image it would be just an exceptionally beautiful place to be! Add a nice roaring fire and a fresh snow with big flakes coming down out the window and I'm lost in a day dream. lol

The guys finally make it in and we walk into town to grab a bite to eat, sit outside our hotel for a bit after dinner and then head to bed.

The next morning we're up and out early, on the road by 7:00 and Kirk's driving so I have a chance to actually enjoy the scenery and take some pictures as we're driving. We continue to head higher up into the mountains and travel through not only the Swiss Alps but the Italian Alps too. There is a major and I do mean MAJOR difference between the roads through the Swiss side of the Alps versus the Italian side! The Italian roads are about a third smaller than the Swiss roads and in some places through the villages come down to roads that only one car can go through at a time. So it was a little nerve-wracking because these tiny roads have quick switchbacks and drivers on that road are patzo!! Crazy! (we learned that from our Rome taxi driver and it's kinda stuck in our vocabulary now. lol) And it's not just cars that you have to watch for either, there are bike riders....like bicycle riders on those roads and lots of them! I think they might have been the craziest of all! Not only are the roads daunting, but there was construction in several places and in one in particular, the road went down to one lane quite simply because the other lane was GONE...gone like somewhere down the side of the mountain gone! And the remaining lane wasn't in great condition. Talk about white knuckles and a quick prayer moment!

We do pass through some simply amazing scenery along the way. It's just like pictures of the Alps that you've seen and just unbelievable panoramas of white caps and clouds and little chalets in areas that you can't even begin to imagine how they got up there to build them. Here and there are some much older farmhouses and shepherds huts dotting the sides of the mountains. Then we pass through a number of small villages (each with amazing old churches and bell towers) and down the one lane roads that squeeze between two buildings (this is a highway, mind you...S337...don't ever drive it if you see that number lol). But such differences from the countryside to the villages and from the Swiss to the Italian, even though you do see some carry over in styles. And just incredible views everywhere you look.

Eventually we make it through the crazy roads and one lane village streets and finally back over the Swiss line and into the town of Losone. The guys have a meeting at 10:00 that morning (it's 10:30 lol) so I drop them off at the office and head out to find our hotel. I find it but figure it's way too early to check in so I'll take a cruise around town and see what there is to see. While the thought seems easy enough, it's quite different when you really don't have any idea where you're heading or how to get there. Losone and Locarno (the town right next to it) sit on Lake Maggiore, which is the second largest lake in Italy and is a glacial lake. It sits in both Italy and Switzerland at the foot of the Alps.

The problem that I found while I was out trying to look around is that when you don't understand the language, it's really hard to figure out where you can park! And blue sign with a big P on it doesn't necessarily mean that just anyone can park there as I found out when a German lady looked at the plates on the car and starts pointing down the road and saying something I completely did not understand but managed to get the gist of what she was telling me....which also meant backing up on a busy street without running anyone over. lol

I finally did find a public beach area and some parking, so headed over to take a look. It was actually a really nice area, you had to pay to get in, but once inside, there was a restaurant and bathrooms and public beach and park area. I walked around a bit, took some pictures and then decided to grab some lunch from the restaurant there. I was a little short on cash, having roughly 20 Euros and a few Francs (both were usable here), but the menu was a bit pricey and about the only thing in my price range was a burger and fries. Sounded good enough for the moment, but wasn't so good when I got it. I'm not sure what the burger was made of, but it wasn't worth the 18 Euros, that's for sure. Thankfully the fries were safe, so the little finches and I munched on those. They were pretty cute and would come right up on the table and would have sat on your plate if you let them.

After lunch, I figured I can probably check into the hotel so I head back into town to the Hotel Nessi, check in and try to catch up on the blog until the guys come in. The rooms are nice, the staff was super friendly, but no A/C, so it did get a little warm at times, but a nice hotel overall.

Meet up with the guys a bit later and sit downstairs with them on the patio outside and then we head down the street to find dinner at a very nice restaurant along the river. It had an outdoor patio with black marble tables and benches and a beautiful overhead canopy of vines and flowers. We had a supurb waiter and a great dinner. For the life of me, I can't remember what I ordered but I do remember it was really good! And I didn't take my camera that night otherwise I would have had pictures to remind me. That 50 mark coming up is starting to show in more ways than one! lol

Everybody calls it a night after dinner and off to bed we go with visions of Swiss Alps, and the sound of yodeling songs and pointing German ladies all dancing in my head. lol

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Comments

[Lee Anne Zeb]

Switzerland & Driving!*
OMG...you had me on pins n' needles with this one!* What a brave soul you are!* Venturing off alone in a foreign country...Yeesh!*... Needless to say I'm proud of you in more ways than one. Continue on with love and blessings!*...xoxoxoxo