Grindelwald - Tour de Suisse Start of next Stage

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An early start to the day with a text from Brendan in the middle of the night (wanting to Skype) followed by a rooster crowing before dawn. What the heck, I may as well get up and check in with our son. I spent the next 2 hours checking email, Skyping, checking "Stuff" and doing the blog. We wanted to know the situation with the Christchurch Earthquake and B's house at New Brighton. It is uninhabitable now which means no tenants to pay the mortgage. A very bad situation for a single wage family.

Today is the start of the next stage of the Tour de Suisse in Grindelwald so we headed down at 10am for the entertainment. There were plenty of "give aways" - hats, bags, drinks, key rings, pens, soft toys mascots and much more. We stocked up on hats and irridescent bags for biking. The teams and individual riders were then introduced followed by the arrival of the cyclists at the start line at 12.20. Ready to roll. Bang! They were off. Motorbikes, followed by press cars, followed by the cyclists, followed by support cars with spare bikes, followed by the support buses. What a spectacle. One minute it's all go, and then it's all over and time to move to the next stage and do it all over again. We loved it. Lot's of action.

We had a picnic lunch in our back packs so headed off walking down the valley towards Zweilutchenen for the afternoon. Later in the day we got the train back to Grindelwald and you would not have known a race had been through. Everything had been packed up, cleaned up and cleaned out. It was quiet so we had a coffee and a beer, did some shopping and got the bus back up the hill. A good day again.

The man next door must be playing his alphorn in the competitions later in the week. It is lovely to listen to the mellow sound of him practicing.

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