Mt Palatis (Zurich), Verdun & Paris

Thu 5th Oct: Arrived in Zurich safe and well after a few hours stop in Liechenstein. Found our room in the Montana Hotel, small but nice, parked the car, did our washing in the bath, booked the trip for Mt Pilatus at the Hotel and headed off to the Cafe strip for dinner. It's like Northbridge, but four time as big, with resturants of every food imaginable. Given our disaster for a spag bog lunch in Italy, we settled for an Italian meal, after mortaging the house with a local broker, it is unbelievable how expensive Switzerland is, food & drink prices are roughly FIVE times in Aussie dollars!!!! Early night for the trip to Mt Pilatis.

Fri 6th Oct - 27th Wedding Anniversary, weather perfect: Arrived at the tour bus only to find that the Hotel had booked the wrong tour and the one we were supposed to be on left 15 minutes ago - NOT happy Jan! We managed to board a bus with a tour similar to the one we had planned since February, a welcome drop in Bruce's blood pressure followed!


Well - what a trip. After arriving in Lucerne, we boarded a cable car to get near the top of the mountain, this took 2 changes of cable car and got us to around 1700m. The next was on a 40 passenger gondolier which took us to 2200m in a climb of 60 odd degrees, little bit nervous with that leg of the journey.... The view from the top was SPECTACULAR. Met a couple of Sybils friends.



After a walk around, photo's and lunch, boardered a cogwheel train down the entire mountain side at a slope of 47 degrees, the highest inclined cogwheel train in the world! Then a cruise on Lake Lucerne back to the bus and back to Zurich. We met and joined up with an Idian couple on their honeymoon.

That evening, being a little tired, we bought some chinese food takeaway, I use the term "food" loosely, 2 dishes, 4 spring rolls and 2 prawns, $AU58.00, flushed it down the loo - CRAP, we are spoilt in Perth....


Sat 7th Oct: Left Zurich on route to Paris, it was to be a 550Km drive, so we opted to overnight around 200Km's from Paris. The dart landed at a village called Verdun, which turned out to be a very good choice, stopping and touring Nancy on the way. Verdun was the area of huge battles during WWI & WWII and is rich in military history. We checked out several American and French war memorials and grave yards with 1000's of soldiers buried. War is so silly.....

Arrived in Paris around 1:00pm, after a lovely drive through French villages, only been travelling on the Autobahns about 50% of the time. Booked into the hotel and went straight down to the Louvre, a ten minute walk from the hotel, checked out Mona Lisa, Venus, Pan, Julius Caeser and lots of other stuff. Words cannot describe the Louvre......



Compared to the other countries we've been to, jeez, the French are an unhappy and miserable lot, in Paris anyway, see what tommorow brings. Had dinner at the Chez Flottes Brasserie, and would you believe, sat down next to a couple from Perth who were Eagles supporters - had lots to gloat about.

Tomorrow, we do the Paris Hop on Hop off tour and then to the Effiel Tower for Dinner, River Cruise and Moulen Rouge.

All for now - Bruce & Brenda

PS - forgot to mention we went to Dachau concentration Camp Memorial after leaving Munich - very depressing, more on that later.