Great write-up and looking forward to next instalment.
Lady Moura is (or was, I don’t know how up to date this info is)owned by Saudi businessman Mohammed al-Rashid. It’s 344 ft long and has a crew of 60.
Bet the fuel tanks take a bit of filling.
Thanks for the response guys. Some of the story is a little dull, and I wasn’t sure if it was worth writing. The next installment starts fairly well, I feel:
Day 8
As we were leaving the hotel in Monaco, we briefly discussed the route with the valet-parking guy. He said it was a good one, “You’ll go up, and up, and up. Then you’ll go down, and down, and down. Then you’ll got flat, and flat, and flat”. He was dead right
I pointed my sat-nav to Zermatt, and it gave me an ETA of 6 hours. How wrong it was…
Every time we took a turn, it disagreed totally with the faster route that the sat-nav preferred; each time it was adding 15+ minutes. I didn’t mind because the roads were fabulous. Stopped for a traditional french breakfast at a small roadside cafe with a nice view.
We crossed over the Italian border several times before finally settling for my favourite country in the world, and flirted briefly with an amazing section of autostrada. You just don’t get interesting motorways in England, but the way this one passed around and through the mountains was great. One moment you’re enjoying some great sweeping curves and plunging into dimly lit tunnels and the next, you’re suspended seeming miles in the air over a breathtaking valley. Did I mention liking the roads round here?
Soon, we’d left the twisty mountainous roads behind and settled into a huge flat plain. Think Norfolk, but slightly more glamourous.
Even as we were crossing this plain we could always see snow-capped mountains on the horizon, a sign of things to come.
Eventually the Alps appeared ahead, and things became a more familiar, tall, lumpy shape. We elected to cross into Switzerland via the St Bernard Pass. I was disappointed at first because of major road works. We spent quite a while stationary, which gave us plenty of chance to watch men slowly turning boulders into smaller rocks by hammering big metal spikes into them. It doesn’t look the most fulfilling of jobs to me, and if they think they’re going to erode the Alps away like that, I reckon they’re going to have to think again.
The saddle of the pass is at about 2,500 metres, and it’s right at the top that we find the border to Switzerland. We got out to take a couple of pictures as it’s quite a beautiful spot and quite eerie as we were at cloud level. It was quite strange to step out of a car to find it wass about 5 degress; it had been about 28 degrees the last time I’d got out to fill up with petrol.
We finally arrive in Tasch at about 6:00pm, after 9 hours of driving. To say I was knackered is an undestatement. Zermatt is a car-free town. It’s completely pedestrianised apart from the little electric vans that many of the businesses have there. We left the cars in Tasch and took the train up to Zermatt and went in search of a hotel. I felt quite weak by the time I’d got to our room on the 4th floor. I blame the altitude combined with the 9 hour drive and the lack of sleep the previous night. It was nothing a couple of beers wouldn’t fix.
As it was my first time in Switzerland, I had to try some of the local cuisine. I settled for a Beef Fondue Bourguignonne. You get a pot of hot oil over a burner, a plate of raw steak cubes, and several dips. Using a long fondue fork, you cook the steak cubes yourself in the hot oil, and then eat them with the dips. I really enjoyed this although all of the dips tasted exactly the same to me; garlic mayonnaise. A few more beers, and time for bed.
Day 9
The plan was to spend the morning in Zermatt, and then travel onto Bellaggio (lake Como). We spent far too much time shopping, and then decided to take the (overpriced) cable car up the Kleine Matterhorn. I’ve never been skiing, so I’ve never been up any proper mountains before. This was quite a treat. We went up in the first cable car, and had a walk around enjoying the view. Strange, the next cable car wasn’t running! We paid too much money to find we couldn’t go right to the top! After much cursing, we found we’d taken the wrong one. Back down again, and up another, then another, then another. This is one big hill! The top of the Kleine Matterhorn affords a spectacular view of the big Matterhorn. Well it does when it’s not hiding behind a big cloud The rest of the view was well worth the effort anyway.
After battling the queues for the cable cars, and (nearly having to battle the very rude german skiers who thought that shoving their way to the front and leaning their skis against other people in the queue was a perfectly normal thing to do) we found it was too late to head for Bellaggio. We decided to re-book our hotel and dine at the Mexican/Swiss restaurant!
Day 10
Basically just heading for home now. We set off for Baden-Baden. We planned to go over the Furka pass, but a huge line of traffic meant we would turn off and hit the Grimsell Pass. Wow! This is amazing. I raced off ahead of Paul, and thrashed my way to the top. My brakes certainly smelled warm when I got there. We found a restaurant at the top complete with very scary waitress in tradition swiss dress. I had my Ghoulash and made her even more scary by asking her if she’s accept a credit card…
Outside the restaurant was strange. There’s a beautiful lake, and a small village of wooden houses. Very small wooden houses. For Marmots! Behind this little village was a few large cages with owls in them. Fair enough, I thought, somebody here likes to keep a few animals for people to see. It seemed a little wierder a couple of miles down the road when I found that some other places like to keep Marmots as well.
The road on the other side of the pass was even better, and the view was simply stunning. I just can’t understand why so many idiots want to ride bicycles up and down these mountains. Looks like bloody hard work to me.
We stopped at the Reichenbach falls just for a little break. This is a fairly impressive water fall, but not the most exciting place in the world. The falls are the scene where Sherlock Holmes met his end after a fight with Professor Moriarty. Or something. I quite enjoyed the Swiss airforce putting on a little impromptu display for us.
We left Switzerland behind and hit a very congested Autobahn in Germany. This was really not a fun drive. Upon reaching Baden-Baden, we struggled to find a hotel because of ‘the world’s biggest opera festival’. We found a decent enough place, and I actually had to use to tools I’d packed for maintaining the car…I had to fix the door of the shower so it would actually close. This S2 is far too reliable to be a proper Exige.
We were in Baden Baden because Paul likes the big Spa thingy there. Julie and I weren’t interested in that, so we just had a look around the place. Not very exciting, but we had a very nice meal so I was happy.
Day 11
Really heading for home today! Back into France. We had a nice, easy drive on the Autoroutes again, and stopped in Reims. Bugger! I completely forgot about the old grand-prix circuit. Really should have gone looking for that. It’s a lovely town, really lively. Lots of bars and restaurants and a pretty lively, young crowd after the slightly middle-aged Baden Baden. It’s a shame we didn’t get much time here as we arrived just in time to go out for dinner (pizza, if you really want to know).
Day 12
This is it. It’s all over. We got an earlyish start to get a ferry at mid-day. We just had enough time in Calais to buy a few bottles of wine. The drive home in England was a miserable experience after the french autoroutes, but at least it wasn’t Germany.
Some stats from my Sat-nav unit:
Total mileage: 2442
Moving time: 46:38
Average speed: 52.4mph
Max speed 139 mph (Sorry, but you can get a bit bored in France when there’s no traffic and no corners).
Fantastic 2nd installment - thanks again
Hmmmm, very nice hol, fab transport & a great write up
Thanks!
Tim.
cheers brendan…
here’s some googled info about that boat you fancied
What it would be like to be proper rich
and a nice pic
[image]http://www.yachtingdirect.com/boats/lady_moura/lady_moura_monaco_oct04_1a.jpg[/image]
![http://www.yachtingdirect.com/boats/lady_moura/lady_moura_monaco_oct04_1a.jpg[/image]](http://www.yachtingdirect.com/boats/lady_moura/lady_moura_monaco_oct04_1a.jpg%5B/image%5D){kind=link}