More travels - just for a change

Sunday: early   Twelve and a half hours on the road yesterday: getting a bit old for this game.  We started a few minutes after 06:00 with the usual cross-country ride to the end of the tunnel, with the rising sun in our eyes, and ended it as we crossed the Aare with the setting sun in our eyes.  I’ve never seen the tunnel terminal so busy, and although we were in good time for our scheduled departure, we were made to wait 25 minutes for the following departure.  The rolling stock is starting to look very tired: as usual the nearest stack of lavatories was out of order, and the fire doors between carriages are not all closing properly, which is a touch alarming.  Still, it got us there, and I whiled away the journey trying to find out from the car’s user manual how to adjust the clock without zeroing the trip counter.  I still haven’t mastered that, but the instruments tell one how many miles are left in the tank, so I don’t have to rely on the trip. 

We used some unfamiliar routes, such as the national roads from Châlons-en-Champagne (sur Marne, as was) over to Nancy.  They are a bit slower, but toll-free. and then over the col to Kaysersberg and Colmar – a very beautiful road, even in poor weather, and we could see why Kaysersberg took the France’s favourite village vote (Lagrasse came ninth). 

As usual, the weather was generally good when I was driving, and utterly dreadful when Martyn took the wheel.  We used some achingly familiar routes as well, such as the ghastly tunnels through Basel – they were practically at a standstill as usual, and Dotty helpfully routed us on to slightly quieter urban routes.  When we rejoined the motorway, it was generally fluid, but still very busy.  And extremely wet.  Anyway, we got to Berne by about 19:30, and the car is safely tucked up just opposite the foot of our stairs, thanks to kind neighbours who have allowed us to use their most convenient parking space.  There it will stay until first thing on Monday, since today is a car-free day in this corner of Berne: they are celebrating the completion of a new roundabout at the Eigerplatz.  Hmmm. 

There is much to admire about the transport network in Switzerland, with the notable exception of the roads.  It is possible to plan a journey to a scenic mountain beauty spot by tram, two trains, a Postauto and the narrow gauge mountain railway: they join up perfectly.  But the motorways are hopelessly congested, and the alternative routes very slow.  They have cunningly built the new Zürich-Berne railway line alongside the motorway, so the train swishes effortlessly past as you battle your way through the rain and kamikaze drivers.  Good psychology.  Still, I bought our 40-franc annual vignette so as to be legal on the motorways, and even using it for just two days out of the remaining months of 2017, it works out cheaper than French autoroute tolls for a similar distance - and provides a sort of one-uppish souvenir on the windscreen. 

We found Pam and today’s birthday boy on good form: they had prepared a favourite of ours: filet mignon de porc en croûte, and further regaled us with fine wines from our part of France. 

An earlyish night, then, but fitful sleep for the first half.  Unusually for me, when I finally got off to sleep, I slept off and on until gone 07:00. 

Sunday: later   We had time before Geoff’s lunch party for a quick visit to the Zentrum Paul Klee, and admired the architecture very much.  The current exhibition is ‘Paul Klee, Poet and Thinker’, and it failed to captivate us.  It included too little of his vibrant colours and architectural drawing for my taste.  We spent a little less long there than we’d budgeted, so got off the bus early to check on the bears, which are now in much more wholesome digs than the old bear pits – the two we saw were snoozing, supine, under the trees.

Lunch was fabulous.  After canapés, an amuse-bouche of green lentil soup with mustard and cress, beetroot mousse with parmesan shavings and lamb’s lettuce, a slice of fillet steak apiece, each of which would have fed us both for a week, it was unsurprising that I could do little justice to the luscious pudding.  Dialogue, as so often in Pam and Geoff’s circle of friends, was in a mixture of English, French, Bäretüütsch and ‘Gutdeutsch’, so stimulated the intellectual as well as physical appetites.  Good to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen for years, and to see Geoff surrounded by loving friends on his eightieth birthday.

Monday   After a surprisingly good night's sleep (just as well), travelling today was pretty hellish.  Dotty hauled us off the A1 at Payerne, warning of stationary traffic further on.  When it became clear that her preference was to route us round the south side of the lake, we thought we'd take our chances, and after a jolly pretty ride through the countryside, rejoined the motorway near Lausanne.  Long, LONG queues into Geneva.  Given that and our Basel experience on Saturday, we wonder why anyone in Switzerland travels long distances by road.  Dotty then took us on another jolly jaunt through farmyards and forest tracks (mild hyperbole), telling us that the A49 was closed.  Why this involved un périple bucolique before we were anywhere near the A49 remains a secret known only unto Dotty, and by the time we eventually reached it, the A49 was quite clear for its entire length.  She tried throwing a few more tantrums later on the route, so we put her gently to bed without supper, and tucked her in.  By the time we got into the Aude, I was so bushwhacked that I got the PIN wrong three times at the Cave Coop, and almost left without the wine.