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This morning i was up early to shower, pack and eat some breakfast as Tonz and I are going to pick up Vince & Alison at 9:15am. Before I left, Nina came upstairs with Evi to say goodbye and then I went downstairs to say goodbye to Muma & Pupa. Always sad to say goodbye but hopefully I will see them all agIan in the not too distant future.
Our plan today is to pick up a hire car from Köln airport for a road trip to Switzerland! We picked Vince & Alison up pretty much on time and got to the airport around 10am. Tonz dropped us off and we all said farewell. We are all so grateful for everything he did for us. Truly a fabulous host.
After a bit of confusion on where we had to collect the car from, we eventually got it all sorted and were on the road by 10:30am. By our estimations, we believed we would be at my friend Manuela's house by around 5:30pm. Alison was in charge of the driving and Vince (and Tom Tom) were in charge of the navigating. Germany (and possibly all Europe) has amazing motorways which
all connect up and seem to flow really well - in most parts! Of course there is always roadworks and the occasionally traffic jam that can through your plans into disarray! Oh, and the rain didn't help.
We stopped at a roadside stop for lunch and I guess these places are pretty universal! Expensive for pretty average food and drink options but hey, when you're hungry a ham & cheese sandwich that costs a fortune sounds great! The further we travelled, the more we started to realise we weren't going to arrive at 5:30! The rain certainly didn't help things.
Once we crossed the border into Switzerland (which, by the way, was unmanned) the GPS decided to take us on the scenic route! It was very picturesque but also rather more challenging to drive on. Alison was a trooper and we celebrated every achievement she made!
In the end, we arrived at Manuela's not much before 7pm! It was so lovely to see her. I said farewell to Vince & Alison who were driving onto Lucern - that should take them less than 1 hour to get there. Unfortunately it took much longer than that and they
also had trouble finding where their accommodation was! They didn't actually get there until 9:30pm!!!! Ohmygoodness- what a day.
Manuela and I headed off pretty quickly as I had arrived later than expected. We stop to pick up Nicole and Sabrina and it was so good to see both of them again. We then drove for probably 15/20 minutes and when we came out of a tunnel, I was greeted with the most amazing view of a lake surrounded by mountains! One even had snow on it. Absolutely stunning! The road around the lake is one way, due to it not being very wide. We were going to dinner at a restaurant on the lake that is owned and run by one of the girls friends when we arrived the first thing we did was take photos! It had been raining most of the time and it was quite cool - nice change from all the heat of late.
I decided to have the Cordon Bleu for dinner as it was recommended by the girls. It was served with chips and I also ordered a salad. There were different Cordon Bleu's to choose from but I chose the
one with prosciutto, gruyere cheese and pineapple. Delicious! We had a lovely night catching up with each other!
The drive back was interesting as it was very dark and we decided to head back the way we came - which is not what you are supposed to do but it was so quiet out tonight. We did pass a couple of cars but it was always at a spot that was wide enough! After farewelling Nicole & Sabrina, Manuela and I headed back to her place. We were both pretty tired - I had travelled over 610kms today and she has to leave home for work at 6:30am - so we headed off to bed. Such a shame that I am only here for 1 night and that I arrived a lot later than planned but it was still great to see them all.
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