Three Countries in One Day

---

Regardless of the weather we decided that today we would go to Geneva for the day, so (by our standards) we made an early start to drive there. There was of course the inevitable tolls, but as it was only about 85km, they weren't as traumatic as the drive here.

There were some passport checks at the border and then as soon as we crossed, we were straight into Geneva. One thing to note when driving into Switzerland, you will need to buy a toll sticker for the car if you are planning on driving on the motorways (sign-posted in green, rather than the blue that's used in France and the UK). As we were only driving into Geneva, we didn't need one.

Things did start to get a bit traumatic when we were trying to find somewhere to park. We went to the Mont Blanc car park in the centre by the lake, and luckily, at the last second, our son spotted that the height limit was 2.0m, which was too low for our roof-box. That came very close to ending in tears. It then took us ages to find some parking that we could actually get into. We had a lot of angry Swiss who were unfortunate enough to be behind us when we were reversing out of car parks that were too low. We eventually found somewhere near the station. From there, it was a relatively short walk to Lake Geneva and the main area of the town.

We went to the Tourist Information, which wasn't particularly helpful. They gave us a map, but I had taken a photo on my phone of one that was on the wall at the station and that was a lot easier to follow. Apparently, there are some people out-and-about called Tourist Angels. They're dressed in orange so that they stand-out and can be approached for advice if you need it. We saw some by the St Pierre Cathedral.

It was still raining, but we accepted the fact that we were going to get wet and had a look round anyway. I was out-voted on how we should spend the majority of our time and we ended shopping. To say the majority of shops are out of our league is putting it mildly. I would love to have bought a new watch, however there were several thousand reasons not to, in the case of a Rolex that I liked the look of, 8,700 reasons. Switzerland's reputation of being expensive is well earned; the Rolex watches that we saw in Bangkok were a tiny fraction of that price (The Floating Tourist Trap).

For some reason, both the kids were nagging me to go for it and buy one. In the case of my daughter, I think it may have been that it would make an easier argument for the pair of shoes that she had her eyes on. Thankfully common sense prevailed in the end and, after we had had some excellent crepes to eat, we left Geneva empty handed.

On the way back we again came to the turning for the Mont Blanc Tunnel so we decided to give that another try. The queues were no where near as bad. We had expected it to be similar in length to the Dartford Tunnel and a similar toll, however we were shocked to discover, only once it was too late to change our minds, that the return trip was going to cost us €51. An extremely expensive late afternoon jaunt. As we were going through it was obvious why it was so expensive as it's over seven miles long. The border checks going into Italy were nonexistent - just three blokes who basically couldn't be bothered and were just half-heartedly waving everyone through.

There were some great views of a mountain called Monte Bianco (for some reason that sounds vaguely familiar). We made a short stop at a small ski resort called Courmayeur, just for long enough to say that we had been there, done that, bought the t-shirt (or postcards in my case) and then we headed back to France.

Needless to say, the Italian side of the border was complete chaos. No orderly queues here, but despite that it was still quicker than the French side.

Having spent €51 on the tunnel and still being traumatised from the €99 curry the other evening, we ate somewhere relatively cheap when we got back to Chamonix. I won't say where, as it's not somewhere that I would admit to. Just to say that it was quiet as the French won't go anywhere near it, apart from a few with laptops who were obviously there for the free wifi.

---

Photos

Geneva
Lake Geneva and the Jet d'Eau

Monte Bianco
Courmayeur and a familiar sounding mountain