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Switzerland


The Swiss border. Although Switzerland isn't in the EU, it joined the Schengen area a few months ago... It looks like there will be a lot of cycle route signs in Switzerland, although I would be happier f... Right, let's get this meeting started, shall we? This bench was so solid that it felt like a desk. T... Views. Swiss flags. The view from Ste-Croix is spectacular. I'm about to go all the way down there. On the way down. If you look hard, you might be able to see the jagged outline of the Alps at the to... Not the only sawmill I passed today. Swiss landscape with motorway. I came down that ridge. France is on the other side of it. You've heard of the gravy train? Well here's the coffee train! ? View with quarry. Here's a cow with a bell. Goats here have them too. That confused me for a while bcause I could hear... The renovation of the centre of Renens seems to have everybody's attention. Lausanne is quite a hilly city. These lifts bring passengers from the metro line up to two other lev... Looking back towards France. The Palais de Rumine in Lausanne. More Lausanne streets, where I am unsucessfully trying to look for a shop selling maps or somewhere ... In the street off to the left are several vans from a television company. There's a big bunch of cab... You can see the Alps clearly now. I had wanted to stop half-way up those tomorrow night but wasn't a... On the left is a big statue of a frog with water coming out of its mouth. On the right, more bizarre... Lake Geneva, seen from Lausanne. I hadn't realised that the city centre is about a mile from the lak... Lausanne. Another television van. This one seems to be covering some kind of food-based event. The swimming pool in a place with the rather silly name of Ouchy. Looking towards the lake. A public area in Ouchy. On a map of the town which I passed, each hotel was shown with a number of stars from 0 to 5, except... Still in Ouchy. I wasn't able to reserve a hotel in a sensible place for tonight so today's ride is ... Lake users. The International Olympic Committee is based here in Lausanne. Somebody waterskiing on Lake Geneva. I'm hoping this chocolate will get me over those mountains. Here's the television company again. Sorry it's a bit blurred, but they had stopped filming by the t... Some of the waterskiers were better than others. An antiques fair on the quayside in Lutry. One of the little monorails for going up through the vineyards. You don't often hear about Swiss win... More views. Having moved along the lake, I can now see up the Rhône Valley to the really high peaks. The white p... More watersports. The main square in Vevey. Lake view from Vevey. I wanted to get a picture of the flag of the European Union at some point on the trip. This looked l... I didn't want to sit there anyway. Is it an owl? Behind it are more people playing boules. A duck with its babies on Lake Geneva. The trolleybus depot in Montreux has quite a lot of wires going into it. Montreux and its surroundings. Montreux. Rowers. The only thing I knew about Montreux before coming here was that Queen recorded some of their record... Somewhere to sit. They are the champions. One of the streams being channelled towards the lake in Montreux. Montreux seems like quite a refined place. Here's a very genteel garden terrace. There's a casino ju... Look at my room! When I was looking for a hotel in Lausanne, most of them were charging huge amounts... Funny sockets in Switzerland. As if the hotel wasn't good enough already, I've got a balcony with a view of the lake. The hotel's restaurant turned out to be as expensive as its opulence would suggest, unlike its rooms... After booking my next few hotels, I've only just thought to check whether the pass over the Alps is ... The forecast showed continuous rain for the next four days. It doesn't look like it's going to be th... I had thought that the River Rhône started at Geneva and just Flowed through France to the Mediterra... I didn't work out why last night's hotel had the word "Golf" in its name; it didn't seem t... There's a cycle route which will keep me off the proper roads for most of this morning. There are al... Some motorcyclists. The Rhône is flowing at quite a rate, but then I suppose it has to if it has to fill Lake Geneva. It... A rather active chimney. It's gone a bit industrial now. We're looking along the cycle route here. Bridges. This wins the prize for today's most random sign. I was slightly lost at this point, having misunder... Looks like the St. Bernard Pass is open. There's no shortage of drinking water in Switzerland. There are fountains like this in almost every ... The covered bridge in Martigny. Martigny. A gospel choir performing in Martigny's central square, where the roads had been closed. Pavement cafés, again. I wonder what kind of tree this is. It's a Strida! I've never seen one in real life before. Another, smaller gospel choir. There were several of them performing around the town centre. The Tou... A view from Martigny. Another view from Martigny. There's an awful lot going on in Martigny. Apart from the gospel choirs, there's a Rodin exhibition ... More traditional Swiss goings-on. A St. Bernard, having its photograph taken. The view towards the St. Bernard pass, where I will be going once I've seen enough of the activity i... Either these are puppies or they are a very small, smooth variety of St. Bernard. There's also this Roman amphitheatre in the town but nobody seems interested in that. All right, I've seen enough now. Oh yes, the Tour de France will be coming through here in a few weeks as well. Something to do with the Tour, perhaps? Near the bottom of the pass. The St. Bernard Express, which runs up the valley from Martigny to Orsières. Like everything else ar... Here, the road passes through a tunnel to protect it from avalanches. The cycle route diverts past i... This looks like the kind of thing which might be used to catch the Road Runner. Orsières, the terminus for the Dog Train. Looking back down the pass. Approaching Liddes as a thunderstorm passes through. Pretty. The snow is getting close now. In Bourg-Saint-Pierre, every hotel is also a petrol station. I can see four from here. It means that... I like the name "Party Animals" for a type of sweet. I don't know what kind of animals the... The weather isn't as bad as I had feared. I was rather thankful that it wasn't too hot while I was c... Not a bad view from my balcony. Horse steak. I don't think I've had it before. Alarmingly, I've found a broken spoke! I've got six spares which I kept from the bike's original whe... Still going up the pass. Here's where the modern tunnel diverges from the old, steep road over the pass. I think the black ha... The ski resort of Super St. Bernard. Traffic which chooses the tunnel option passes through this building before heading into the mountai... These cyclists were doing better than me. I'm afraid I had to walk the steep section, which was the ... The snow is still quite deep in places. Looking back down the pass. Here at last is the monastery/hotel/museum at the top of the pass. It seems that in this top section... I suppose I should move my bike in case the snow falls on it too. I had always expected to spend a while up here, enjoying the views which I had worked for, visiting ... 2473 metres, not as high as I went in Colorado a couple of years ago, but a lot colder. I hadn't expected the lake to look like this. Here's the end of Switzerland and the first kilometre marker on the Italian road.