Europe and Beyond

Our take off from Paris was delayed about 40 minutes and then our landing was delayed another 1/2 hour or so due to congestion.  Fortunately for us this wasn't an issue as we still arrived at our hotel around 8:30am and the room wasn't ready - as expected.  Back to the flight though and with the late take off, dinner wasn't served until around midnight, so by the time we tried to sleep, the flight only had about three hours left.  We each managed to sleep only an hour or two, not really what we were hoping for. Tired or not we had a new city to see, so we went straight to the nearby Mall of the Emirates for breakfast, then wandered the shops for a while.  The Mall of the Emirates is really big and includes 'Ski Dubai', an indoor ski slope and snow playground.  We didn't want to spend anytime in there, though it did look fun. We decided to venture outside but couldn't do our usual walking around.  This was for two reasons, firstly Dubai is very spread out ...

Tuesday we drove to two small towns, Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen not far from Interlaken.  Both villages are at or near the base of the Eiger and Jongfrau - the tallest mountain in Europe.  The weather wasn't kind to us and both mountains were shrouded in clouds for much of the day, but we still managed to get glimpses of the tops of these and the surrounding mountains.  It is incredible how high these are, up to 4100 metres high and they look every inch from close up.  Absolutely stunning. Lauterbrunnen is also known for the 72 waterfalls in its vicinity.  We didn't see all of them but did see about 1/2 a dozen, including the two 'main' ones.  Staubbach Falls drops 300 metres in a single go, one of the highest in Europe. Trummelbach Falls is a series of 10 falls that can have a flow of 20,000 litres per second.  The noise was deafening and watching that amount of water crash down was amazing.  The other big deal with these falls is ...

Sunday we drove to Lucerne, about an hour away.  The road went over and through mountains with maybe 10 tunnels, some as long as 5.2kms.  When going over the mountain the road was quite windy and at one point  double backed on itself, though many feet higher.  The blue line below shows the road, with the black border indicating a tunnel. We also drove along or near several beautiful lakes with gorgeous green water and cute villages on their shores.  The scenery really is stunning. Lucerne is typical of the bigger cities we have been to in that there is an 'Old City' section partly bordered by a medieval wall.  This is the area we spend most time in and here we looked at two covered bridges over the Reuss river.  Both originally date back to the 14th or 15th century, but have been rebuilt after floods and/or fire.  The more famous of the two, Chapel Bridge, had a fire in 1993 which destroyed many of the 17th century paintings that adorn...

We chose to take Toll Roads in France and were tossing up whether we could avoid them in Switzerland. Here they have a Vignette system, where you pay a one off amount for a sticker allowing use of Toll roads.  In Austria we could get a 10 day pass but in Switzerland you have to buy a yearly pass - which is actually a calender year so buying now means it is 6 monthly.  Anyway we wondered if we could avoid toll roads altogether in Switzerland, but when we reached the border a police officer directed us into a particular lane then another police officer came to our window asking for money so we had no choice but to get one. We immediately left the toll road anyway and headed into Geneva.  The roads were some of the most confusing I have driven on with bike and bus lanes criss-crossing the driving lane and different traffic lights for cars and buses.  Took me a while to get the hang of it all, but Geneva was very nice with some beautiful buildings and of course it is o...

We decided to change the itinerary a little as our last day would have involved a 900km drive. So we have arrived in Provence, Southern France prior to Switzerland instead of after and based ourselves in a town called Apt and are driving to different parts from here. We have driven about 450kms and been to the Pont du Gard (Roman Aqueduct) and a couple of larger cities, Nimes, Avignon and Marseille as well as countless small villages, such as Gordes, Murs, and Bonnieux.  Trace has also been very keen to see lavender growing and we have hunted down several fields, though in some the lavender isn't yet blooming. Nimes was a little disappointing as not much of the old town remains.  The Roman Amphitheatre, which they say is the most complete building of it's type has been refurbished in parts and now holds rock concerts. When we visited the arena had been overlaid with asphalt and it really detracted from the feel of the place. Avignon was lovely with a preserved wall surro...