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Published: June 11th 2017
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We had a day of problems but got off to a good start with Marc taking us to Kontanz to pick up our rental car. It is VW Golf, automatic, has a GPS and is a good size. The GPS was odd to operate and when we put in an address we headed off towards St Gallen. Wrong. So, we put in Saanen and headed off towards Zurich. Correct. We had a lunch stop at a huge Movenpick outfit which straddles the motorway where my 1E coin wouldn't work for the toilets - of course. The Indian lady finally let me in after some gabble between us.
The scenery along the way is low lying, rolling hills with a lot of forest cover. More forest than we see at home I might add. The towns and villages tended to be very industrial which accounts for the countries affluence. They make stuff. Further south towards the mountains it becomes rural with large farm buildings and hay making happening at present. Then a problem occurred. The oil light came on saying that the oil was low. We stopped and checked and the oil was fine but we were concerned about the notice so phoned Europcar 24 hour service on my mobile roaming from NZ. After a frustrating wait of "please hold, we're waiting for an operator" over and over and sensing my Spark account soaring at $4 a minute I gave up. So we continued on. The car seemed fine and likely to be an electronic fault.
Just before Spiez we headed towards the Alps towards Zweissimmen and Gstadd. The road was narrow and winding through steep limestone hills and forest with villages squeezed in. We eventually arrived at our destination at Saanen where we were greeted by non English speaking elderly owners. Well, older than us. Our apartment is the top floor of their house and has absolutely everything you could possibly need - except a kettle! It is a little old fashioned but absolutely spotless. It looks out from it's location over the huge valley containing Gstaad, Saanen, many farms, an airport and mountains all around. Very nice.
The next problem was the internet which existed but wouldn't stay connected so we couldn't use the Skype phone to call Europcar. So, back onto our roaming phone at $4 a minute. Lindsay spent ages trying to get the right person and running down to the car for information. I was getting mad because of the call running out of NZ and in the end we had no result. The person said someone will contact us and we shouldn't drive the car! Everything is shut tomorrow including the Information Office so it's setting up for an interesting day.
Alexander, the house owner phoned Swisscom and between him (old and not a tecchy) and me not speaking the lingo we had confusion. Fortunately a neighbour does speak English and I spoke with the SwissCom guy but managed to turn off everything including the owners internet! I think the router is kaput as the light pulses instead of being green. Anyway, the upshot is for us to stick around in the morning when one of Alexander's rellies comes to check it out and between him, me and SwissCom get something working. In the meantime I've linked into somebodies unsecured internet connection to do this blog. Maybe not a good thing but it works.
For a little exercise and a break from the problems we decided to walk down to Saanen. It was not a good idea at 6pm as it was a very steep path and also very warm. Then, to turn around and walk back up. Ah well, perhaps we should drive the car regardless tomorrow and start at the valley bottom.
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Grace Krieger
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Oh noooo (groan!), what a start to your road trip :( Sending lucky thoughts your way today that everything gets sorted and situated with both car and internet :).