“On Days Like These…”

We had reconciled ourselves to the fact that Switzerland was not what we had anticipated. Yes it was beautiful but it was also unfriendly, expensive and it was impossible to be spontaneous.

But accepting it was part of the solution. We no longer expected to be able to enjoy the freedom that we had taken for granted in Africa. Instead we meticulously planned our every step, fought our way through the roads and accepted that we had to camp in busy, expensive car parks rather than in beautiful, natural surroundings.

And with that acceptance, we decided to continue to slog our way around the country and tick off as much of our itinerary as we could.

From Lake Lucerne we went to Engelburg, a pretty town with a monastery and plenty of mountain hiking trails. I wasn’t sure how much hiking we wanted to do but we could work that out when we got there.

We arrived at lunchtime and found a car park where we could stay for a couple of hours to orient ourselves. Unfortunately, the orientation part uncovered the fact that this region did not provide much for motorhomes. I wandered over to the tourist information office who pointed me in the direction of a campsite that ‘only’ charged £41 a night. We decided to take the offer and booked a pitch.

It had started to rain hard so any idea of hiking was off the table. Instead we spent the afternoon poking around the monastery

And wandering around the town

It was all pretty enough with spectacular views of the mountains

But not a lot else.

When we arrived at our campsite, they tried to increase the price to £57 on the basis that we were too heavy for the bridge to the cheaper pitches. It soured our mood even more and when they finally agreed to ‘discount’ the price to £45 I agreed without grace.

The place was just a big car park for motorhomes

And when we discovered that the showers cost an additional £5 each we were enraged – but cheered ourselves up by filling our water tanks from their drinking fountain and showering at home!

But we couldn’t argue with the fabulous views …

It was bitterly cold overnight and we woke up freezing. All in all, we weren’t feeling Engelberg, it seemed to represent all the downsides of Switzerland.

So we decided not to hang around and instead headed for the Rhone Glacier.

The route took us over the Gotthard Pass which looked a bit hairy for BigMog

But it was magnificent

We swept along the mountain roads, James expertly rounding the tight switchbacks, the world passing by us as if we were in a movie

But the climbs were steep, BigMog was getting hot and his brakes had started squealing again. So when we reached a large car park close to the glacier, we pulled over to allow him to cool down

Unfortunately, when we checked underneath we saw more than a little oil pouring out

It seemed as though the effort of climbing the mountain roads had finally split the old torque tube and 24 years worth of oil build-up had spewed out.

We spent three hours on the side of the road with James refilling the oil and wrapping tape tightly around the tubes

Whilst he was working, a German couple came over to talk to us and admire the Mog. They were having a day out in their Aston Martin and we went over to admire that in return

Cheered up by our new friends and trying not to be disheartened by our oil problems, we decided to press on and visit the glacier despite it being late in the day

The Rhone Glacier is receding quickly and an ice cave that used to be a top visitor attraction has now melted away with the remnants sitting sadly some meters from the toe of the glacier

We wandered up to the viewing point and looked out at the fabulous views of the glacial lake

Then paid the entrance fee to do the walk out to the toe

It was absolutely gorgeous

We walked along in one direction, reading all about the history of glaciers

Then walked down in the opposite direction as far as we could go

James got a little further than me as there was mound across the path which he only just managed to get across and I feared my wobbly legs would end up putting me in the freezing lake

But he took a couple of videos for me so that I could see what I had missed

That night we parked up at the top of the mountain looking out over the peaks and the winding roads disappearing off into the distance

It was very cold but worth it for one of the best views we have ever slept with

Beautiful as it was, the whole place was absolutely rammed with cars, motorbikes and pushbikes. The noise from the traffic was constant day and night and there was no space to relax. It was clearly a very popular spot for locals and tourists alike

We had more problems the next morning. When we tried to start the engine it simply spluttered and died. Again and again we tried until eventually it whimpered into life. But as soon as it got going, black smoke started spewing out of the exhaust. I saw it out of my window and told James to switch the engine off quickly but he couldn’t – even with the key taken out of the ignition it was still running.

James finally managed to cut the engine and when we restarted it everything was fine. Another problem to resolve, but we decided it was one for a later day

We drove up and down the beautiful winding roads of the Furka Pass, one of the highest passes in Switzerland, stopping a few times to check the oil levels and give the brakes chance to cool down. But there were no more dramas. The road eventually evened out and we drove slowly downhill into the town of Interlaken.

We had found a potential park-up place on someone’s drive which they rented out to motorhomes and when we arrived it was perfect. There was plenty of space and we were the only ones there – not even the hosts were home. There was a welcome sign on the front door so we parked up and headed for the bus into town

Interlaken is the main centre for activities in the area including skiing and hiking. It’s not a bad town but it is almost exclusively for tourists. Apart from chocolate, ice cream and watch shops, there was only a church to entertain us

But we did get an absolutely fantastic view of the Eiger which was worth the trip on its own

Back at the truck we had a river trickling away behind us and were able to relax and plan the next few days

Looking at what was left on our itinerary, it all started to feel a bit like groundhog day. There were a couple of mountains we could go up and a few lakes we could take a boat around. We had already done all this and everything cost a couple of hundred pounds a time. By the time we ruled out repeating more of what we had already done, there was not much left and I cannot say that this was an unwelcome turn of events.

Interlaken is a town between two lakes – Lake Brienz and Lake Thun. Our park-up place was on the banks of Lake Brienz so the next morning we took a walk around it

The view was lovely and we walked for an hour or so in the sun

We then jumped into BigMog and drove to Spiez where there was a castle to see. However, we were not going to have any luck in this town – motorhomes are banned from all their car parks. We found signs for ‘bus and lorry parking’ but the first one only allowed a maximum 15 minute stay and we never found the other one as the signs were taking us so far out of town we couldn’t walk back to the castle.

We gave up and drove on to the next town which provided two car parks where motorhomes could stay overnight. We stopped for a bite of lunch at the first one to check it out and it was perfect so we marked it on the map for later before driving on to the town of Thun which had its own castle.

Thun does not deliberately exclude motorhomes, however we tried four or five car parks and found that we were unable to get into any of them – they were all too tight and very busy. Eventually, just as we were about to give up on this castle as well, we found a parking spot on the road that was large enough for us to squeeze into

Delighted and relieved in equal measure, we walked through the town to the castle

It was interesting

Inside, the fabric of the building was exactly as it had been in the middle ages

But there were no furnishings – instead a large exhibition telling the history of the castle took up every room

When we arrived at the top level in the roof it was fabulous

And there were four turrets with narrow ladders to climb up for beautiful views over the town

All in all it was well worth the struggle to park.

As we walked back through the town we came across a sluice gate under a bridge where the water was cascading out and three people were wake-boarding

One was rather better than the others but they were all clearly have a great time

We watched for a while and laughed along at their antics, then headed back through the pretty town to the truck

We returned to the car park in the previous town where we settled in for the night. At around 8pm there was a knock on the door and a security officer peered in to check that we knew we could only stay one night. We confirmed that we would be leaving the next morning. He nodded and wished us a peaceful night. Not that we were being watched day and night of course….

It was only a few minutes drive to Castle Hunegg the next morning but it was pouring down with rain and the castle didn’t open until 2pm. So we stayed inside until 11am then had a walk around the lake to Castle Oberhofen which looked very dramatic jutting out to sea

After some lunch we headed into the grounds of Castle Hunegg where we got a bit lost but eventually found what we were looking for

This place was the best yet. Small and cosy but every room was beautiful

Everything inside was original dating back to 1900. It had the sense of a much loved family home, just on a very grand scale

I asked the guy on reception whether the family would be interested in selling but apparently not…

On the way back to the car park we stopped off at the grotto

And then headed back into town to try the second of the overnight car parks. This one was much smaller and out of the way which seemed ideal at first, until I was surrounded by parents bringing their kids to school whilst I was trying to do my morning training. Space was feeling very tight in Switzerland.

Later on that morning we found ourselves driving along more lovely, winding mountain roads. We re-entered the French speaking part of the country, heading for the town of Ormont-Dessus where the local municipality provide a large, free car park where motorhomes can stay, paying only a small tourist tax of around £8 for two of us. We thought this was amazing, especially when we found it also entitled us to a 20% discount off the very thing we had come to see – Glacier 3000.

Glacier 3000 is a mountain resort, 3000m up in the Alps where there are a variety of activities including the ‘Peak Walk’ – a 100m suspension bridge between the peaks of two mountains – a taboggan ride, various restaurants and viewing platforms. It was the last thing we planned to do in Switzerland before heading into Italy.

The car park was surrounded by mountains and as I walked over to the bins late that evening I was struck by the beauty of it all

The next morning it was very cold and the clouds were low in the sky which didn’t bode well for our day. We drove to the large car park at Glacier 3000 and our cable car arrived a few minutes later. We boarded with great excitement

But as we started our journey upwards we disappeared into clouds

When we got to the top it was hard to know what to do. It was bitterly cold and all we could see was white. We had a quick look in the shop and restaurant in the hope that the clouds would clear but they showed no sign of going anywhere. So we went to the very top floor and stood on the viewing platform. We could see the toboggan run below but nothing more

Despite the weather we were in good spirits and crossed the Peak Walk, feeling very wobbly as we stepped out into nothingness, it was as though we were floating in mid air

At the other end we warmed ourselves with a cup of hot chocolate from the flask James had made and hoped that the clouds would clear eventually

We decided to brave the toboggan run

The lovely lady who worked there told us that there was no speed limit – and we took her at her word. We didn’t touch the brakes once and by the time we got back she was grinning at us saying that we were one of the fastest cars she had recorded, peaking at 45km/hr. It had been a thrilling and exhilarating ride and I wanted to go back and do it again!

It eventually seemed to get a bit brighter so we went back up to the Peak Walk to try our luck again

We battled it out up there for an hour and a half, with my endless optimism that the mountains would come out ‘just after this next cloud’…

Apparently, on a clear day, you can see right across the Alps to Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, the Eiger and Jungfrau. For us, we had exciting glimpses of a couple of mountain peaks as the clouds ebbed and flowed around us

But eventually it got too cold and we headed back down to the restaurant for a chocolate cookie where we had a moment of excitement

But ultimately we had to accept that a perfect view over the mountains was not for us today.

We headed back down below the clouds in the cable car

Drove back to our lovely car park and spent the evening warming up. It had been a wonderful day, despite the clouds, and we were happy that our Swiss adventure had ended on a high – quite literally!

So that was it for us and Switzerland. Looking back on it we had had some really fantastic experiences and the landscape is truly awe-inspiring once you get out of the towns. But we could not help but be relieved that we were moving on – we needed to be somewhere less regulated, less expensive and – let’s face it – happier.

We said our farewells to this difficult yet beautiful country and headed off towards one of the most stunning routes into Italy – the Great St Bernard’s Pass. Yet again, we were sweeping up and down through the mountains, switching back and forth, climbing and dropping hundreds of metres at a time whilst all the while the backdrop was spectacular

This time there was actually a sign welcoming us into Italy and as we passed it we high-fived and grinned at each other. I exclaimed ‘we can afford to eat again!’ and it felt as though the weight of the world had fallen off our shoulders.

Italy is another beautiful country, but it is also famed for its warm hospitality and culture whose essence is encapsulated in the phrase ‘La Dolce Vita’. A life filled with enjoyment and savouring the moment. A culture which, in short, was the complete opposite to the Swiss.

We carried on along gorgeous roads until we reached the town of Aosta. I thought it was a small, historic town but when we arrived we found ourselves driving through a large, dirty city that seemed a bit run down.

We arrived at a car park where we planned to spend a couple of nights to find it was rather noisy and grimy. But it felt safe enough so we settled in and I set about doing some research on our new country

I knew that Italy had quite a few low emission zones which BigMog could not enter so I planned to map them out to make sure we worked around them. But when I found the details I saw to my dismay that there aren’t ‘quite a few’, in fact there are 584 of them, covering large swathes of the country, plus another 357 limited traffic zones (ZTLs) covering the smaller towns and villages where no traffic can go at all.

The maps for each zone were almost impossible to make sense of and every zone had different rules governing them. The information was contradictory and confusing and apparently even the locals don’t understand it.

Our initial enthusiasm at entering Italy suddenly went cold. How on earth were we going to manage all this? Italy was supposed to have been our main destination for this first 90 days in the EU and we had both been looking forward to it immensely. Now we had to admit that we may well end up hurrying through this country as well.

Somewhat subdued, and wishing ourselves anywhere but in the EU, we figured we would just try and work it out day by day and see how far we got.

The next morning, as I started my training, we found we had an unusual neighbour

James came out to watch as the balloon was filled with hot air, the people climbed aboard and it floated away.

It was a great start to the day which took our minds off the road problems for a while.

We headed into the historic centre of the town, apparently full of Roman history. It took a few minutes of walking along the railway lines and through some rather grim areas but eventually we found the historic centre

And then the first intact Roman structure – the Porta Praetoria

It was very impressive.

Our day got better and better from there and Aosta turned out to be an absolutely fabulous town

The Roman Theatre was closed for renovations so we could only get a glimpse

But we found a shop full of Italian cheeses, meats and bread which smelled amazing. We promised to go back later and buy everything they had!

Next stop was the Church of Paleocristiana di San Lorenzo

The main attraction here were the cloisters

James read out from the guidebook what the capitals on each pillar were depicting as I took photos

The church next door was pretty. A wedding was about to start but we had just enough time to dash in and look around

The Cathedral di Santa Maria Assunte was absolutely wonderful

It had a mediaeval, cavernous feel inside

We could go up close to the alter and see the intricate detail of the carvings

And there was a great little crypt underneath to poke about in

Nearby was the Museum Archeologica where we could walk through Roman excavations underneath the city

By now I had run out of patience. We had been in Italy for almost 24 hours and I had not had any pizza. The whole town was full of delicious smelling restaurants and I couldn’t wait any longer.

We picked a wonderful little place just off the main centre which served us amazing pizza and calzone

We lazed around at the table stuffing our faces and enjoying every minute.

As I looked around, all I could see were friendly faces, people smiling and laughing, families chatting together, enjoying the sun and the fresh air. It was everything we love and everything we had been missing. Life was good.

We left the restaurant with full stomachs and held hands walking down the street discussing what we were going to treat ourselves to for dessert. We found the perfect place – a lovely little café that sold lots of squishy cakes.

We sat up on the roof terrace making ourselves feel thoroughly sick and not having a care in the world

We waddled out of the café and headed for the Criptoportico Forense – long, underground Roman passages that once supported the sacred heart of the ancient, Roman town and are remarkably well preserved

We had a quick visit to the Roman Walls

And the Leper’s Tower

And then headed back to the truck to collect our laundry and carry it all the way back into town to a laundrette. A great day of sight-seeing, pizza and clean clothes – it doesn’t get any better.

That evening we left our noisy car park and tried to find somewhere a little quieter. The first place we tried was impossible, the roads were far too tight. The second place was still a challenge but we got there in the end and found ourselves parked up by a peaceful little children’s play area with a small stream bubbling behind us.

The next morning we set off for the Pont D’Ael, a Roman aqueduct built in the third century BC and almost entirely intact. We parked up in a car park that clearly wasn’t built with UniMogs in mind!

But nobody seemed to mind. We walked through a lovely little village to the ticket office

From where we got a perfect view over this incredible structure

How did the Roman’s built this over two thousand years ago and how has it has survived for so many centuries seemingly untouched?

There is a passageway inside which the Romans used to get from one side of the valley to the other whilst the water flowed above their heads. We walked through it, now renovated with a glass floor inside so that you can look right down to the foundations

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and we were enjoying Italy immensely

We had a quick lunch in the truck then drove to the village of Lillaz. We booked ourselves into an official aire for the night which wasn’t much more than a big car park but the views across the river were spectacular

We walked up the steep hillside to the top of the Cascate di Lillaz

Then walked back down again through the woods

The village itself was picturesque and very quiet with just a few tourists milling around. We wandered around for a while before settling in to the garden of a local bar and treating ourselves to a beer

We could feel all the stresses and strains of life ebbing away as we breathed in the clean air and listened to the people around us chatting and laughing.

Back at the truck we put the chairs out and I sat reading my book and watching the river bubbling along.

But eventually, even with my big down jacket on, I had to admit it was getting a little cold so I went inside whilst we cooked dinner and warmed ourselves curled up on the sofa.

Sadly, this peaceful life was not to last. After a few perfect, Italian days, we ended up right back at square one the next day.

We had decided to drive high up into the mountains to try and get a good view of the Matterhorn. In hindsight it was not the best idea as steep, narrow mountains roads are not BigMog’s favourite stomping ground

We found ourselves grinding up roads that were really not where we wanted to be. At one point we had to do a sharp u-turn into a tiny village where we were practically touching the houses on either side. We pressed on upwards until we finally reached the car park at the foot of the cable car up to the remote village of Cheneil. The cable car came on request so I pressed the button and up we went

At the top there was nothing apart from a few cows and a stunning view

This should have been enough but we were both far too stressed from the drive to enjoy it. Instead we sat miserably on the bench wondering how much further through Italy we were going to get before our nerves were shattered.

To make matters worse, having got back down onto the main road again, we carried on up to the ski village of Breuil-Cervina which is closer to Switzerland than Italy both geographically and culturally. The roads into the town had big signs up prohibiting motorhomes from entering. We turned back to a large car park which was set aside for campers.

Our view that evening was of a building site

All this way to see the Matterhorn and all we got was a crane.

To add insult to injury, our dinner was awful. James threw his away, made a pot noodle and went to bed early.

I suppose you can’t win all the time and whilst it seemed like a disaster, it was one of only a handful of Italian days that did not go well.

I knew the next day was going to be better as soon as I got up. The building site may still have been there but the clouds had gone and we finally got what we had come for

Absolutely spectacular

Picture perfect and worth all the troubles of the day before.

Renewed with energy and optimism, we walked down to the Blue Lake and found yet another perfect view, this one topping almost anything we had seen before

It was the best start to the day we could have hoped for and reminded us just how good life is

With the memories of the day before forgotten, we jumped back into BigMog and headed off to find out what else Italy had in store for us. Whatever we would find, we had no doubt that it would be full of life, laughter and pizza…