never pass a pisser, never trust a fart, never waste a stiffy.
A 5 week tour in the ‘Van’. Starting at Calais, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italian Lakes, Monaco, France Alps, Annecy and home again.
So ALL of the views are AWESOME – here are a few from my phone…
And everything is named after Princess Grace (roads, theatres, charity shops – everything !!!) 💋💗 xxx
So we got up at the crack of dawn, got ready and the guys at the campsite dropped us off at the railway station.
It was a double-decker train and a 15 minute ride to Monaco 🇲🇨 – see first photie below that I took as we were pulling in…
Then we made our way across town to the cathedral in plenty of time (but it was uphill and bloody hot 🥵). The guy on the door said I had to cover my shoulders (luckily I had a lacey thing I my bag) and the cathedral was just beautiful (and that’s me in black outside the front afterwards – if you look hard !!!)💋💗 xxx
I could just about follow the service (with my rusty A’Level French), joined in with the hymns and what was lovely was (just before the end) they say a short prayer in Latin to bless the Prince of Monaco 🇲🇨 💗💋 xxx
So we got back from the bike ride and Dave uttered those inimitable (!!!) words, “Darling, shall we pop over to the cocktail bar for one ?”
The “cocktail bar” was a wooden hut 15 feet from our van and there was only one other chap there initially – Luca.
We started off with a red-coloured vodka (me) and rum (Dave) both with sprite… Massive (Spanish-style) measures…
What I’ve never noticed in England (and I’m not saying they don’t exist) is floral trees – and there was loads as we cycled around the lake – so when I noticed one at the cocktail bar, I had to get a photo !!!
I then switched to “Gin-Lemon” as Rino (the bar tender) was pushing it (probably had a job-lot !!!)
A few other peeps turned up (only one lady – Vita – piccie with her below) – who – by the wonder of the Google-Translate app – I managed to have a conversational with – and she was “finding herself” – from what I could gather, she’d done a Shirley Valentine – good luck to her !!!
Also below is a photo with Jordano – who I liked because he was the only one who went to Mass regularly 🙏 !!!
Suffice to say that and Dave had to remind me this morning about the pizza 🍕 that they shared with us and I cannot remember going home 🥴 xxx 💋💗
So we packed a picnic and trundled off on the bikes round the lake.
It was a bank holiday (15th August) – the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Catholics believe she was taken up to heaven BODY and soul) and as Italy 🇮🇹 is a Catholic country…
So everybody was out but nowhere felt rammed – families having picnics, at the (several) parks around the lake, people fishing or just mooching around and enjoying the day…
There was a safe cycle path around most of the lake, it was hot 🥵 so it was nice to feel the breeze – and the views – as ever – were amazing 💋💗 xxx
So one of these photies is already on Facebook but basically on Wednesday we left Lake Lugano and tried to drive into the centre of Como but it was an absolute nightmare – absolutely zero places to park…
So we drove further to a place called Garlate and ended on a fab little site right on the lake – with a view of the lake from The Van.
Lake Como is shaped like an upside-down Y and Como (the city) is at the bottom left hand stalk and Lake Garlate is just under the bottom right hand stalk (I repeat – my Geography knowledge knows no bounds 😂😂😂)…
We had a LUVLEY BBQ tea and then took a bottle of wine to the lakeside (about 20 feet away) and just took in the idyllic view until it went dark 🌙 …
Idyllic that is until I realised that I had been breakfast, dinner and tea for the b@… mosquitos 🦟 🦟 🦟 !!! Xxx 💗💋
So due to technical reasons (or possibly because I was hammered when editing the post) I lost this so am quickly re-doing it but it should be before the Lake Lugano post…
Below is Heidi (the owner of the Interlaken campsite that Dave has been visiting for years on his motorcycle), the view from our pitch and the 3 mountains 🏔 famous in that area – The Eiger, The Monch and The Jungfrau (the highest mountain in Europe).
From our pitch we could see The Eiger and The Monch and I loved to look up and even though it was (sometimes !!!) boiling 🥵 on the ground I could still see the snow capped mountains 🏔 xxx 💋💗
My Geography is coming on in leaps and bounds on this trip !!!
So I thought “The Lakes” were in Italy 🇮🇹 but no there are some in Switzerland 🇨🇭 too 😂😂😂 and we ended up at Lake Laguna – which is in-between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como…
We attempted to drive into the centre but there was simply nowhere to park The Van so because we were still in Switzerland, we ended up at a TCS campsite at the bargain price (NOT) of 69 Swiss francs for one bleedin’ night !!! THEN – to add insult to injury – we popped into the on-site shop and ended up paying a further 30 for 2 bottles of wine !!!
We then hopped on the bikes and found an Aldi next door selling wine for 4.95 🙂 Bad planning or what !!!
So we had a little ride around the lake and it was very tranquil… 💗💋 xxx
Our last day in Interlaken was due to be damp so we said we’d catch the bus into town and do some shopping 🛍…
Traditionally Cuckoo Clocks are associated with The Black Forest 🌳 and we looked at every single one (really, we did) whilst we were there…
The main jobbies have long chains hanging down which you have to pull to wind the clock up either once a day – or with the bigger clocks, once every 8 days. Now (once we’d warmed to the idea of actually possibly getting one) we knew that our cats 🐈 (Arthur & Babe) would attack the chains…
So they also make battery operated cuckoo clocks and the added advantage of these is that they have 12 tunes (the manual ones only one or sometimes two tunes) which play after the cuckoo chirps AND there is a switch on the side to silence the music and or the cuckoo !!!
I initially REALLY wanted “The Kissing Couple” (smaller) clock but it simply wasn’t good value compared to the larger “Children On The See-Saw” clock. Dave wanted a nice roof and a water wheel – which they both had… What finally swung it was that there is space for me to pop a small nativity scene on there at Christmas 🎄 🎅 plus the discount the shopkeeper applied – along with free shipping !!!
We also bought a cow bell to hang outside out front door at home (as I haven’t had a doorbell since I got a new front door 2 years ago !!!) and then had a mooch around some pretty gardens – check out the big clock in the middle of the flowerbed below…
The one we didn’t buy…
… and the one we did !!! xxx
Sunday was going to be the last sunny 😎 day so set an alarm ⏰, got up, showered and on the bikes cycling into town to make 10am Mass.
It was a sparsely decorated church with only a couple of modern stained glass windows but a lovely service with 1 x English reading and 5 x hymns 🎵 – one of which was the tune of “All People That On Earth Do Dwell” so I got stuck in and had a good sing !!! The great thing about the German 🇩🇪 language is that you you pronounce all the letters so I also had a good go at the other hymns too !!!
Then we locked the bikes up at the nearby railway station and hopped on a train to Grindelwald which was a pretty little town nestled in a valley being overlooked by The Eiger 🏔
I had dashed off with no breakfast so was starving so we found an idyllic little place overlooking the valley and snow-capped mountains… 💋💗 xxx
