Switzerland

Switzerland

July 5th 2011. Switzerland!

The weather forecast in Germany keeps promising a heat wave which never materialises.Its warm enough but not always sunny enough.Come on! Sort it out! In the end after a few days we decide it’s time to head for Switzerland and Lake Luzern.

It’s a stunning drive on the Sunday as we leave through the forest and whilst we are sad to leave we know there are (hopefully) many more surprises in store for us across the border in Switzerland.

You’re supposed to have a Vignette sticker for the toll roads in Switzerland which costs 40 francs. As we enter on the motorway this time there is no place to stop off and get one so we just pummel through the border and expect to be hunted down by the ruthless Swiss military at any moment as we storm down their frankly crap motorway like fugitives.

Luzern is the lake we were supposed to go to on our first Euro trip as I stayed there with mum and dad on our Europe trip when I was 15.Unfortunately I drove to the wrong lake last time, we ended up in Montreux and Geneva, didn’t like it, left and were spat out into France before we knew it. This time I have it right. We arrive on a smashing farm campsite and plonk ourselves on the top of a grassy hill. The views are stunning, its red hot, eagles sore around the van and the lake beckons.

We while away 4 lazy days here, swimming in the lake, visiting nearby towns and villages on the bike including a trip to Luzern and it’s like suddenly being on a sunshine package holiday just with nicer things to look at. It’s so very hot, good for my diet though and I get a lot of swimming in and manage to find a rather small and pathetic Lillo for further adventures out on the lake. It’s too hot for Yellow Belly.

The little farm we are staying is lovely, right up our street, spread out where you like with no apparent rules or regulations. Each day in the mountains in front of us we are treated to a red arrows type display by the Swiss Air Force. They do the same sort of death defying stuff but at the same time trying not to hit one of the huge peaks they are flying between. I think the Swiss are seriously tooled up. They are wealthy and they are also all trained killers. They all have to serve in their army for 2 years and there are lots of guns here apparently. You don’t see any though apart from the odd copper with a machine gun sat on a town roundabout looking for trouble from British Motorists and taking out ones that haven’t paid for the Toll Vignette (yes I have one now!).

There are no chavs here or indeed anyone who looks remotely like a criminal. I suspect the crime rate is low yet somehow the people just seem a little too perfect, almost Stepford wife so. I feel that even to chuck a dog end on the floor might result in a SWAT team descending from above to take me away. I like it here but I fear it wouldn’t take me long to end up in Jail.

I’m losing weight but the new tablets for my gout are actually making it niggle all the time. Some days are fine and I manage to walk around Luzern town with no problems at all. The Arthritis in my knees seems to have vanished overnight and for one day I can walk without any form of pain or problem. In fact I dance around on a bridge with delight to bemused looks from the Swiss before remembering where I am and the fact that the Swat team are only moments away.

All right listen up world! This is very important and all three of you out there who are reading this need to take note. I’m declaring to the world right now that I’m a reformed character and won’t come back to blighty until there is a photo of me coming out of some lake or sea that if you squint could be Daniel Craig coming out of the sea in Bond. (Ladies back home, form an orderly queue in anticipation). There that’s it. I’ve committed now. This life style suits me though and I think because of it I will do it. I will stay until I am no longer fat!

Finally after a few days the weather turns and we have a day of rain. It just pours and pours. The next day we leave for Interlaken.

Chicken Alert!!! Yippeee!

Michelle loves cooked Chickens from Morrison’s or wherever. You can find them in most countries but can we hell find any in Germany or Switzerland. Chickens are just not meaty or butch enough for the Germans and the Swiss are all robots and only eat high grade engine oil and WD40.

But then all of a sudden as we leave Weggis there is a van in a lay-by with a giant red chicken on the roof. Almost causing a pile up we virtually handbrake turn the van around and in the excitement almost smash the giant red chicken to bits. The startled guy selling the chickens eventually realises it’s not a Chicken ram raid and speaks perfect English having worked in the Savoy for 3 years and we start chatting which goes on too long for me as all I can think about is hot chicken! We park up the road half a mile away and fall upon the crispy brown beast like we haven’t eaten for days. Fifteen quid for what ends up being a snack but well worth it!

The drive up to Interlaken is stunning although Interlaken itself is nothing to write home about.We end up 12 miles up the valley where the road just stops in the Shadows of the Mighty Jungfrau Mountain.

The Bernese Oberland, The Campsite Terminator, OCD campers and the Swiss Family Fit!

We find the little campsite at the top of the valley (which is still inside the cheap ACSI season just) we really don’t want to use campsites but here you have little choice. I think the carefree park where you like attitude that the French have would probably be rewarded here by the rapid despatch of a Hell Fire missile from one of the ever watching Swiss Red arrows team.

We are not used to campsites and the protocol and when we arrive the site reception is shut for three hours. It’s only a small field with a track going around it so (stupidly) I decide it will be ok to drive around, maybe find someone and have a looksee. I should have known by now that this is frowned upon in Europe and out of nowhere a rather stern looking gentleman comes over to the van looking cross. “It is not a Drive Through!” he announces. I almost piss myself. He sounds just like Arnie in Terminator. “You Vill leave a mess”.“You drive on zee grass in ziss big van and zee whole place vill be like a farm yard!” “sorry I didn’t know but I didn’t drive on the grass, I was careful and I have a bad foot”. This confuses him but he seems to calm down. Despite him now knowing I have a bad foot he still insists that I now go with him and walk around the track we just drove around so he can show me the possibilities of where we can park for the night.

God I much prefer the French system. The village gives you a bit of land, they put a tap and a loo disposal on it, make it free (in most cases) and say there you go park where you like and when its full its full unless you’re from Italy and you will just somehow squeeze your van under someone’s sunshade.

Anyway back to Arnie the campsite warden. He asks me why I’m limping. I consider for a minute some story about kicking to death the last campsite warden who was too over efficient and bossy but decide to try and explain Gout to him.Like me, he eventually wishes he hadn’t asked and after we circle back to the van after hiking the whole place he says. Park there! (30 yards from where we are stood. Hmm. As he wanders off I will him to say “Ill be back!”

Every place we seem to stay in every country seems to have an OCD motorhomer on it. We saw them on the Mosel and the one we had in Titisee spent all day washing and polishing his van until it rained. When the sun came back out an hour later he would sigh, shrug his shoulders and start again.

The one at Jungfrau isn’t as obsessed with his van but with filling it with water and washing its bits (the vans not his bits). Every five minutes he wanders off to fill up what appears to be a Childs watering can. He then walks back to the van and gently pours it into his tank. Which to be honest is a bit like me topping up Lake Ullswater by peeing off the jetty. His other job is the washing up.However this entails taking individual plates or even a single knife and fork at a time back and forth to the toilet block.

Now I bet your all saying “you cruel git” these poor chaps are obviously a bit ill. No. We have a theory. They just don’t want to be around their partners. Nowt wrong with them, In fact I’ve talked to them and they seem perfectly normal and frankly relieved for the distraction. I start to see what our motorhome friends say is one of the appeals of campsites. Watching Johnny Foreigner behave strangely.

For days I limp around but I’m determined to see stuff and enjoy it here as it truly is perhaps one of the most stunning places in the world. I feel like a complete spaz (sorry PC brigade). An overweight Brit limping around due to a life of excess where around me the Swiss Family Fit jump off mountains in paragliders while lithe fit looking mothers hike up them with a pack of babies strapped on their backs. Nobody is boozing, smoking or lying around sunbathing yet they seem to be having a good time. How can that be?It’s obvious though to me now, without your health all this is pointless. I must be serious as the cheap booze supply we stocked up on in Lidl in Germany consisted of one bottle of wine and four beers. Two years ago the van was fit to bursting with the stuff when we left Germany. Progress!

Michelle manages to fit in though and does some pretty good walks. Apparently she climbed to the top of the Jungfrau which is over 13000ft in less than two hours which is flipping impressive and I promise to get in touch with the Guinness book of World Records as that has to be one. Sadly her camera failed near the top due to altitude sickness. Apparently.

To get about without ropes and crampons means using one of the cog railway lines or cable cars which go up impossible hill sides just about everywhere. The cost however involves selling your entire estate and probably the wife for a 10 minute journey to a mountain top. There is a restaurant on the top of the mountain near us which was in a Bond film. The cable car to the top is about £100 so god knows how much a bag of chips is when you get there. Deciding not to be beaten and as Michelle is quite attached to her house back home we treat both the bike and the van to some rather hair raising trips up impossible roads and passes.

The two lakes at the bottom of the valley, Thunersee and Brienzersee are beautiful. We bike round one and use the van with the bike on the back to see the other. I decide it’s too far on the bike to go up to a mountain village on the side of Thunersee so with the bike on the back we set off in the van. Now these roads in a car would be a challenge, in a 25ft long motorhome which weighs 3.5 tons it’s a little trickier. The sat nav and Autoroute software don’t really help as they assume we are driving a mini and we climb and climb on a road that starts out ok but us being us we are heading for an elusive wild camping spot up in the hills we have heard about. Yeah right! Wild spot for a mountain goat it seems.Eventually it gets too dangerous to continue the last 5 miles in the van and I scout ahead on the bike to confirm that had we continued another half a mile we would have either got completely stuck or have had a very quick trip back down to the valley floor thousands of feet below us!

We are now parked on a campsite high up above Lake Thunersee. The woman who checked us in was friendly enough but made a complete drama of positioning our van in the exact spot she wanted us on which is actually a completely empty part of the site! "How long will you be staying? No noise after 10pm" and for some reason when she sees our motorbike she becomes alarmed and asks “your not workers are you?” What? Do we look like workers? It turns out she had a bad experience with British workers and the police had to be called. A serious incident apparently. I assure her we are on holiday and point at my shorts and flip flops in the hope that this will help. She seems assured but how queer.

We have loved it here, the scenery is breathtaking, the weather has been superb and finally I feel great. My Gout has gone (again) but somehow this time I feel I am on the road to fitness and wellness and whilst I feel Switzerland has played a part there is something about this country that I don’t like. I can’t quite put my finger on it but it’s almost too perfect. Everyone and everything is just so. I suspect anyone who breaks the law here is silently removed and reprogrammed. I like the fact that the Italians blare their horns at each other for no reason whatsoever or that the Germans will use any excuse to sit around a table in funny hats singing and getting pissed and I like the fact that the French have an unwritten law that allows them to park their motorhomes wherever they like and nobody even cares. Indeed last night after 10pm as I stood outside having a fag it was so quiet I feered that if I broke wind alarms and search lights would go off.

I wonder then as we contemplate our next country if anyone here has ever got drunk, scattered a Kebab down the street in a drunken stupor before running down the road shouting Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland! I doubt it and I don’t think its wise for me to show them an example.

Where next? No flipping idea but we are going there tomorrow