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Friday 5 July. 220 miles. St. Moritz to Neuchatel. Hotel Alps et Lac.
As we drove nearly straight across Switzerland, we encountered the Glacier Express.
It went through tunnels while we took the gentle hairpins down a long hill. One tunnel is just visible over the steering wheel.
We were often able to wave at the passengers as they enjoyed the view.
Colin pic.
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On the way up to the next pass, we had gone through a tunnel under this waterfall.
Colin pic.
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At the top of one of the most beautiful passes of our whole trip.
The Timmelsjoch in Austria was another.
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Saturday 6 July.
A much needed rest in Neuchatel after the hustle and bustle of the rally, followed by the lovely, but long, drive the day before.
Watched the ducks at the pier.
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Have to find out what this duck is. Not the ubiquitous mallard, I think.
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In Neuchatel's Jardin Botanique.
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Stairways and walls, decorated and not.
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Ghostie-O’s very safe parking spot next to the hotel.
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Sunday 7 July . 293 miles (263 were planned.) Neuchatel to Bourges. Hotel de Bourbon
This day’s drive was meant to be about 30 miles shorter, our longest of the whole trip in any case. At Nevers, we were getting nervous about fuel, and along the way, we hadn’t seen anything open. We finally found this 24 hour Carrefour station that fortunately would take a card.
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Formerly, we had done no more than 140 miles before filling up, with some doubt at that. This time, it was 150 miles, and although that doesn’t seem like much more, one always worries about just what sort of fuel mileage has been achieved. This time it was about 10.6 mpg US, so we would have been okay for 20 or 30 miles more without running on fumes.
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We admired the front of the great St. Etienne Cathedral of Bourges, a Unesco World Heritage site, in the last light of evening, then went in the morning to see the remarkable stained glass windows
Before leaving Bourges, we visited the Palace of Jacques Coeur who in the 15th century, “possessed the most colossal fortune that had ever been amassed by a private Frenchman. The sea was covered with his ships; he had 300 factors in his employ, and houses of business in all the chief cities of France. He had built houses and chapels, and had founded colleges in Paris, at Montpellier and at Bourges. The house in Bourges was of exceptional magnificence, and remains to-day one of the finest monuments of the Middle Ages in France.”
From http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica Coeur,_Jacques
There is some thought that Jacques Coeur is the cause of the term “bourgeois” to describe people of some success and pretension, but I can’t find any clear referenc...
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Monday 8 July. 133 miles. Stayed with friends near Saumur.
Stopped by a canal for a quick lunch on the way.
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This house not as boarded up against the sun as many in small towns and villages.
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This lovely pic of Colin's will do nicely as a summary of the final bits of the trip.
Tuesday 9 July. Still with friends.
Wednesday 10 July. 180 miles. Saumur to Ouistreham. Best Western La Mare O Poissons
Thursday 11 July. 88 miles. Ouistreham via ferry to Portsmouth then home to Hemel after 3300 miles.
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