Switzerland We were thinking of going to Canada, but the flights were too expensive. So we thought we'd blow the money we saved on not flying to Canada on hotels, food and beer in Switzerland.
Ibis Thursday - We left home at lunchtime to catch a late afternoon train to Calais and drive as far south as we could manage before bedtime. We made it as far as Chalon-en-Champagne, which is just south of Reims, where we checked into this pleasant Ibis hotel.
Beer Just time for a lovely beer before bed.
Service Station Friday - As we didn't cross into Switzerland on a motorway, we needed to stop at the first service area we passed to get a vignette, which is basically a Swiss road tax sticker that everyone using their motorways must display. Clever. I don't know why we don't have them here.This was the inside of the service station we stopped at to buy our vignette.
Service Station View This was the view from the service station's terrace. Very nice.
Riffelhaus We parked in Tasch at around 3pm, hopped onto a train to Zermatt, then hopped onto another train up to our next hotel - the Riffelhaus at Riffelberg. This is a picture of the front of the hotel.
Balcony View And this was the view from our balcony. They hotel had been recently refurbished and was very nicely presented indeed.
Riffelberg As it was still only around 5pm, and having been sat in the car all day, I decided to go out for a short walk before dinner. This was the lovely view of Riffelberg a few hundred yards from the hotel - little church thing on the left, hotel in the middle, train station on the right.
Rotenboden Half an hour later I arrived at Rotenboden. Occasionally there are excellent reflections of the Matterhorn in the lake, but not on this day.
Glacier View So I made do with trying out my new remote shutter for my phone. It makes taking "selfies" a lot easier than having to set the timer and run into what you hope is the right position before the shutter goes.
Matterhorn Sunset On the way back to the hotel I got this interesting view of the sun appearing to sit on the summit of the Matterhorn.
Beer Back at the hotel it was time for a very nice dinner and a beer. Being in a mountain hotel, we were on a half-board package (as there's nowhere else to eat) and there's no menu as such. You're just given a list of the things they're going to serve you (although you do have a vegetarian option if required). It was all very nice though.
Schwarzsee/Hornlihutte As it was getting dark the lights came on at Schwarzsee (in the bottom right) and at the Hornlihutte (in the top left). We would be relocating to Schwarzsee in a couple of days and I was hoping to walk to the Hornlihutte while we were there.The small light near the Hornlihutte is probably climbers returning after climbing the Matterhorn earlier in the day.
Church When it got properly dark I ventured out with my camera and a tripod. This is the little church thing a couple of hundred yards from the hotel (although it seemed further than that when I was walking there in the dark!). A thirty second shutter makes it look like daytime but with stars in the sky.
Church/Matterhorn The little church and the Matterhorn (although the Matterhorn is largely obscured by cloud).
Riffelhaus Our hotel (the Riffelhaus), with the glow from Zermatt down in the valley visible on the left of the photo.
Shadow My shadow cast by the light of the half-full moon.Distance walked today - 3.1 milesAscent today - 801 feetDescent today - 801 feet.
Balcony View Saturday - The weather was super again, with barely a cloud in the sky. Time to indulge in the very nice breakfast buffet (excellent scrambled eggs) before heading out for my first proper walk.
Trail Initially the trail was pretty flat and headed directly towards the Matterhorn.
Riffelalp View Looking behind me I could see the hotel at Riffelalp (not be to confused with the hotel we were staying at Riffelberg - I reckon loads of people have made that mistake over the years and turned up at the wrong place just as the trains stopped running for the day). Zermatt is just visible in the bottom of the valley.
Ibex As I was up and about quite early there were a few Ibex around, but they weren't keen to hang around and have their photos taken. This was as close as I managed to get to one.
"Glacier Garden" After a while the path descended steeply into the "Glacier Garden" (Gletschergarden). I'd never visited this area before.
"Glacier Garden" At the bottom of the valley there was a dead-end trail up the valley. As it was early I thought I'd see how far it went.
"Glacier Garden" This is how far it went - to the bit where the valley narrows to this pinch point. No way past that. An information board said that in 1850 the glacier used to extend to a couple of miles past where I took this photo. That was as far as it went before it started to receed and now it's a couple of miles back up the valley.
Signpost From the end of the trail the signpost only points back in the direction I've come from.
Slow Shutter As I had a mini phone tripod with me, I thought I'd try out my phone's Slow Shutter app. Normally I'd need to take this sort of photo using my SLR and an expensive ND10 filter, but the app has rendered that (like so many other things) superfluous to requirements.
Slow Shutter Here's another photo taken with my Slow Shutter app.
Zermatt After spending a very entertaining hour-or-so in the "Glacier Garden", I headed for Zermatt to meet up with Judith. This was the view down the valley looking towards Zermatt from somwhere in the vicinity of Furi.
Classic Matterhorn View As the weather was so nice it seemed rude not to snap the classic Matterhorn view from the bridge in the middle of town, even though I've snapped this view numerous times before.I met up with Judith and we had a nice lunch in the restaurant Old Zermatt.
Afternoon Walk After lunch I decided I was going to walk all the way from Zermatt up to Gornergrat, which a) I'd never done before, and b) with about 1,600m of ascent (about 5,250 feet), is one of the most vertically challenging walks one can undertake in this area.The signpost at Winkelmatten indicated that it should take around four-and-a-half hours!
Grunsee I made a tactical error on the first half of the ascent. There were two routes I could have taken - a pleasantly cool one through trees on a north-facing slope and a scorching hot one out in the open on a south-facing slope that had been cooking in the sun all day.At times the thermometer on my watch was reading 30C, which is far too warm to be walking uphill.Still, once I'd made it to Grunsee (shown in the photo), even though I was out in the open, it was on a north-facing slope and not too warm.
Gornergrat In fact not only was it not too warm, by the time I made it to this little lake just below the Gornergrat summit, it was down to a cool 12C!As it turned out, this was as high as my legs would carry me. By this time I'd been walking for over six hours and I just did not have the energy to walk higher. Plus I still had to walk back to the hotel at Riffelberg.
Rotenboden Passing Rotenboden again on the way down there were some quite good reflections.
Showers Looking south I could see what looked to be some very heavy showers in the valley to the west of the Matterhorn. Fortunately they ran out of puff before they made it as far as me.Time for a beer and a well earned dinner.Distance walked today - 15.3 milesAscent today - 4,787 feetDescent today - 4,787 feet.
Sunny Sunday - Clear skies again. We enjoy going to the Alps in September because the weather is often very nice (apart from last year when we got rained on almost every single day!). But this year it was proving to be exceptionally nice.
Bye Bye Riffelberg It was time to wave goodbye to Riffelberg and relocate to our third hotel.
Cablecar So we got the train back to town and walked across town to the Matterhorn Express cablecar, which we got up to Schwarzsee. Here's Judith on the cablecar.
Schwarzsee And here's the hotel at Schwarzsee. Whilst being visually very similar to the hotel at Riffelberg and being in a similar sort of location, inside they are quite different. This is much more, er, earthy where the Riffelhaus is all shiny and newly refurbished.
Trockener Steg Having deposited our bags in our room, we jumped back on the cablecar and headed for Trockener Steg. At almost 3,000m, Trockener Steg is pretty high up. This was the view down to Zermatt from Trockener Steg.
Trail We had decided to head to the Gandegge Hutte for lunch, which is around a 30 minute walk from Trockener Steg. Here's Judith on the trail to the Gandegge Hutte.
4x4 If you want to do some serious off-roading in the high mountains, this is apparently what you need.
Gandegge Hutte After the expected 30 minutes or so we got our first view of the Gandegge Hutte in the distance.
Gandegge Hutte It's in a thoroughly outstanding location.
Gandegge Hutte Considering it was a lovely day and it was the weekend, we were surprised it wasn't busier.
Terrace Judith found a nice spot on the terrace.
Terrace View This was the view from the terrace over the impressive Theodulgletscher (Unter).
Beer Beer and soup for lunch. Lovely.
Cablecar The big cablecar to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise passed overhead on our way back down to Trockener Steg. Although it doesn't look it from here, I seem to recall that you can get nearly a hundred people in that!
Furgggletscher Judith got on the cablecar back to Schwarzsee, whilst I set off on the short(ish) and slightly downhill walk across the plain under the Furgggletscher.
Matterhorn The trail just gets closer and closer to the Matterhorn, offering better and better views.
Rocks Although it's not at all obvious from this photo, the big rock is probably 15 feet in length. So that's quite a lot of smaller rocks that have been stacked on it.
Ridge As I reached the base of the Hornli ridge there were magnificent views along the ridge to the Matterhorn.Despite the fact that it looks like I'm just standing next to a big pile of rocks (which I suppose I really am), the ridge on the right is almost 500 feet high!
Schwarzsee A short while later I got my first view of the hotel at Schwarzsee, where I arrived after about another half an hour of walking.
Judith We still had some time before dinner so we popped down to the lake to check out the reflections. Here's Judith sitting by the lake.
Judith And here she is again. I couldn't decide which picture I liked best so I've included them both.
Reflection And here's the rather excellent reflection. It would have been even better but for the hundreds if not thousands of little fish that live in the lake that keep coming to the surface, creating perpetual tiny ripples all over the place. Still, it looked pretty good.
Dinner Then it was time for beer and an excellent rosti for dinner.
Matterhorn in the Dark I took this probably three hours after sunset, but there was a bright moon rising, which has illuminated the clouds like daytime. It's only really the stars in the sky that gives away that this is a night photo.Distance walked today - 6.1 milesAscent today - 940 feetDescent today - 2,344 feet.
Sunrise Monday - Yet another lovely day. I've completely screwed up the exposure on this photo though. Must have been too busy looking at the view to notice.
Schwarzsee View I was up for an early(ish) breakfast and off on the trail to the Hornlihutte long before the first cablecar started ferrying people up from Zermatt, so I had the trail completely to myself, which was lovely.
Marmot I'd seen a few marmots while I'd been walking about, but I hadn't been close enough for a good photo. This one trying to hide under a rock was the best photo opportunity I had all week.
Hornlihutte Can you see what I've done there? I've lined up the trail marker to the Hornlihutte so that the end of it points right at the Hornlihutte. It took a surprisingly long time to get in just the right spot to do that.
Walkway The suspended walkway. Always a high point on the way up to the Hornlihutte. So far I've never had to cross it while anyone else is on it, which is probably just as well.
Sheep One regularly comes across little flocks of sheep whilst walking. But I can't imagine what these are doing here as there doesn't seem to be a decent mouthful of grass within about a mile. Presumably they're having a heated debate about electing a new grassfinder.
View There were great views approaching the top of the ridge.
Ridge Finally I was on the top of the ridge, which meant I got to walk along an almost flat path for a few minutes.
Well that's new Apparently the old path had become so dangerous that they've closed it and installed some actual stairs, which doesn't really seem to be in keeping with "climbing" the Matterhorn. Still, it's better than falling off and dying.
Trail Snacks Over 3,000 meters and my trail snacks were starting to look like little baloons.
View Awesome view looking down the valley back towards Zermatt.
Hornlihutte Approaching the Hornlihutte. Starting a walk to the Hornlihutte half way up at Schwarzsee certainly makes it significantly less of a challenge. The last time I got to this point I thought my legs were going to fall off.
Hornlihutte The last time I was up here the Hornlihutte was closed for refurbishment, so this was the first time I'd been on their lovely new deck.
Matterhorn View There was a great view of the Matterhorn from just behind the Hornlihutte.
End of the (Hiking) Trail The hiking trail goes a few hundred meters past the Hornlihutte to the point where the proper climbing started on that dark wall behind where I'm standing (that looks about a twenty feet tall but is actually probably more like a hundred and fifty feet tall!). When I came up here last year I didn't have the energy left to go all the way to the end. No such issues this year with my new start-half-way-to-the-top approach.
Secret Hutte? About three quarters of the way to the top from where I was standing I could just make out another structure. With my camera on full zoom it was just possible to make out another building of some sort. A secret hutte or climbers refuge presuambly, but I've never seen it mentioned on any maps.If you look really carefully you can just make out the coloured jackets of some climbers on the mountain above the building.
Schonbielhutte There was a nice view down to the Schonbielhutte from here.
Down It was time to head back down to meet Judith for lunch. Back on the ridge I took the path down the west side of the ridge, which is rarely used (because it's a much harder walk than coming directly from Schwarszee).
Stafel Ninety minutes later and I was at the restaurant at Stafel. Judith's in this photo somewhere, but I think she might be hidden by an umbrella.
Cablecar After lunch Judith and I walked down to Furi (she won't walk uphill), where Judith got on the cablecar back up to Schwarzee. You'll have to take my word for it that she is actually in this very cablecar, although on a super-zoomed version of the photo you can tell that it's her.I headed off up the trail to Schwarzsee. It was "only" a 700 meter (2,300 feet) ascent, but I had been walking for quite a few hours by this point.
View Nice views though.
Shower A couple of days ago I'd stood further down the valley looking up the valley at a heavy shower over pretty much where I was standing now. Now I was looking down the valley at a heavy showed over pretty much where I'd been standing then. Quite lucky that.
"Glacier Garden" From the trail I got some great views of the "Glacier Garden", where I'd been walking a couple of days earlier.
Beer The last mile or so was really tough going, but I made it back to the hotel for a beer and some dinner (which, in a confusing moment, was briefly snatched away from me before being reluctantly returned).Distance walked today - 12.3 milesAscent today - 4,695 feetDescent today - 4,695 feet.
Last Schwarzsee View Tuesday - Still another lovely day and there was just time for one last look at the Matterhorn from our balcony before we packed up our stuff and headed back to our car.
Cablecar Here's Judith on the cablecar back to Zermatt, from where we got the train back to Tasch and retrieved our car from the now almost completely deserted car park.Top tip - if you're only going to Zermatt for a couple of days, try not to go over the weekend as it'll be much quieter.
Valley View We had a few hours to spare before we could check in to our next hotel in Leukerbad, so we decided to drive up to the resort of Crans Montana to see if that might be a potential future holiday destination.This was the view on the way up to the resort.
Weird It turned out that Crans Montana is not really a place in its own right. It's more of a region that includes several villages. Consequently it was difficult to know where exactly to head for. We ended up parking in this weird car park that had much of its roof held in place by dozens of the supports that you can see in the photo, which didn't inspire great confidence.Needless to say, we didn't stay in that car park for long.
Pizza We drove a bit further and found a nice and safe looking outdoor car park just across the road from the excellent pizza restaurant that you can see in the photo.We had a nice lunch in the restaurant before deciding that we couldn't really fathom Crans Montana at all. I don't think we'll be returning.Time to head for Leukerbad.
Leukerbad And here's Judith on the balcony of our room at the Hotel Viktoria in Leukerbad.
Spa One of the town's many spas is located right next door. Our hotel provided complimentary access to that.
Parking The only real downside to the hotel is that it has very limited parking outside. Judith had booked reserved parking, which turned out to be in a secure underground car park a few minutes walk from the hotel. A bit odd, but it's nice to know that your pride and joy is stashed somewhere safe out of the elements.
Gemmipass As it was still only mid-afternoon and the weather was lovely, we thought we'd get the cablecar up to the Gemmipass, which is basically at the top of the mountainside in the photo. Impressively, our hotel provided a complimentary pass for the use of this cablecar. Even more impressively, there's supposed to be a hiking trail to the top, although from where I was standing that didn't look plausible.
Cablecar On the Gemmipass cablecar. It was still tricky to see how there could be a hiking trail up that.
Leukerbad View From the top there were excellent views over Leukerbad. In the foreground you can see part of one of the insane via ferrata that people throughout the Alps use to try to kill themselves.
Gemmipass At the top of the cablecar there is a whole new world with abundant hiking possibilities of its own. From here you can walk to Adelboden and Kandersteg on the other side of the mountain range.
Restaurant View This was the view from the deck of the restaurant. On the left you can see the suspended observation deck that they've built to freak people out. Clearly I was going to have to have a go on that (although Judith firmly declined).
Walkway The floor of the walkway is a robust metal mesh that offers an excellent view down. If you were unlucky enough to fall off I don't think you'd hit anything solid for at least a thousand feet!
Mad Trail From the cablecar on the way down we got a glimpse of the mad hiking trail to the top. That is proper mad. It never ceases to amaze me that people can look at, say, a 2,000 foot near vertical wall of rock and say, "Yeah, I reckon we can make a trail up that. Where's my hammer?"
Black and White A black and white photo of one of the old (looking) buildings that we passed on our way back to the hotel.
Star Trails We had time for half an hour in the spa before heading out for dinner.That night I enthusiastically set my alarm for 04:30 to get up after the moon had set, but still well before sunrise, to setup my camera and leave it taking photos of the sky for half an hour. Unfortunately I couldn't get as much sky in as I'd have liked because the balcony above ours was encroaching on my super-wide angle view. Came out okay though.
Balcony View Wednesday - Remarkably, yet another super day. I was up as early as the hotel's breakfast schedule would allow to start my walk up to the Gemmipass before the sun got too high in the sky.
Gemmipass My plan was of limited success because even though most of the town was still in shade at 08:30, the trail up to the Gemmipass was already in full sun. Still, the rocks hadn't had a lot of time to bake in the sunshine yet so I was still feeling fairly optimistic about my prospects.
Where's the Trail Approaching the vertical wall of rock, it seemed increasingly improbably that there could be a trail to the top of that, even though I'd seem glimpses of it for myself yesterday.
Cablecar The cablecar passed far, far overhead.
Gemmirunner In Leukerbad there are a group of people called Gemmirunners that don't think it's challenging enough to walk to the top of a near vertical, 3,000 foot tall cliff. They prefer to raise the bar a bit and run to the top. Here's one passing me.
Trail Even as I climbed higher it was still always impossible to see where the trail would go next. I could only look behind me to get glimpses of the bit I'd just walked up.
Vertical From half way up there was a good view of the near vertical-ness of the cliff I was ascending.
Trail This was one of the best views of the trail behind me that I got. Look at the trees at the top of the photo. I'm nearly looking straight down onto the top of them!At least there was a handrail to stop you (easily) tumbling off if you became overwhelmed by the madness of the whole experience.
The Top! After an hour and 45 minutes I got to the top, which I was quite chuffed with as the sign posts said it should take well over two hours. Nice views.
Cablecar Station I had a bit of time to kill before Judith arrived on the cablecar (she hadn't expected me to make such stellar progress), so I took a few photos to pass the time. Here's the cablecar station.
Restaurant Here's the deck at the restaurant, with the entrance to the suspended viewing platform on the left.
Cablecar And here's Judith arriving on the cablecar.
Daubensee We had decided to walk the three miles or so around the lake - Daubensee - that was a short walk from the cablecar station.
Daubensee Unfortunately a lot of other people had the same idea. Fortunately it was a long trail and people soon spread out.
Hotel Schwarenbach When we got to the end of the lake, Judith said she'd read that there was a hotel/restaurant up here somewhere. And indeed there was a sign saying that the restaurant was a mere 30 minutes or so walk from the end of the lake. So off we set.Here you can just see the Hotel Schwarenbach in the distance in the middle of the photo.
Hotel Schwarenbach It was really quite big when you got up close to it. Particularly considering that it's miles from anywhere. But there were loads of people there. It's apparently at the half way point along the trail between Leukerbad and Kandersteg - about four hours in each direction if you were to walk all of the way. There were plenty of people coming from both directions.
Beer So we had a refreshing beer.
Soup I also had some very lovely soup with edible (I hope) flowers in it. Judith had what was essentially a massive slice of toast with about a pound of cheese on it, which she seemed to enjoy very much indeed.
Back After lunch we headed back to the Gemmipass, which, much to Judith's disappointment, was a bit uphill.
Lake So we stopped for a bit of a rest at the end of the lake when we reached that.
Gemmipass I dropped Judith off at the cablecar before heading off down the mad trail I'd walked up earlier.I noticed there was this "no bikes" sign at the top of the trail. But that didn't stop a few mountain bikers from having a go anyway. I hope they enjoyed pushing/carrying their bikes most of the way down the insane and completely unridable trail :o)
Trail View More precipitous trail views.
Miniature Here's one of those weird miniature photos of Leukerbad.
Miniature And here's one of our hotel (right in the middle) and the spa next door.
Beer/Dinner Time for beer and a pizza.Distance walked today - 14.6 milesAscent today - 4,179 feetDescent today - 4,179 feet.
Cloudy!!! Thursday - For the first time since we'd arrived in Switzerland we did not wake to a cloud-free blue sky!
Hydrant At some point the fire hydrants around town had been painted to look like little people. However it looked like that might have been a while ago as the paint was flaking and faded now. Still quite interesting though.
Clouds Walking through town, we could barely even see the Gemmipass for the clouds covering the top.
History We were following a trail through town that described the history of the spas. One of the information boards showed a drawing, done in 1764, of the trail up to the Gemmipass that I'd walked up yesterday. So the trail has been there for at least 250 years!!!
Gorge By the time we made it to the gorge at the edge of Leukerbad it was actually raining! Not heavily, but enough that we needed to put our waterproofs on. This also made the metal walkways in the gorge a little slippery. Fortunately there was no-one else there so we could take our time. Which was great for Judith because there are few things she enjoys more than loitering about on walkways that you can see through, suspended high above the actual ground.
Bridge Judith crossing the suspension bridge in the gorge. The bridge was impressively wobbly even with one person on it. It must be hilarious on a busy day when several people are trying to cross at the same time.
Stairs At the end of the gorge there are some impressively steep steps that you need to ascend to climb out. Judith was almost as unhappy with those as she was with the suspension bridge.
Lunch She was much happier once we'd made it back to town for a big bowl of ice cream though.
Afternoon After lunch Judith headed back to the hotel and I headed into the mountains for my last proper walk before we left Switzerland. I'd been hoping to make it to the peak at Torrenthorn today, but the early poor weather had discouraged me from trying to make it to the top of a 3,000 meter peak. Now it was too late in the day to go all that way. So I thought I'd just see how high I could get.As I ascended out of town there were some nice views across to the Gemmipass.
More Rain The trails in this area were a nightmare! They were all over the place. There were trails that weren't on my map and the trails that were on my map seemed to be signposted to places that weren't on my map. So progress was slow and I had to backtrack a couple of times to get my bearings.Consequently I didn't get quite as high as I'd hoped I might, only making it as far as the middle-station on the Albinenleitern cablecar.In the distance I could see approaching rain showers so decided to head back to the hotel.
No Rain The weather soon improved again though. Unfortunately I the trails didn't and I was still beset with not being certain where I was heading for half of the time.
Tunnel At one point I'd been following a trail that didn't appear to be on my map to a place called "Tunnel" that also wasn't on my map when I came to an actual tunnel through the mountain. The trail markers clearly said that the trail went through the tunnel.
Tunnel It was quite a big tunnel too. There was a footpath, but it was still rather disconcerting when lorries and buses came through. Although as they came round the corner I think they were almost as surpised to see me as I was alarmed to see them.
Leukerbad I survived my unexpected tunnel experience and made it back to town.
Judith Across the valley I could just make out Judith on our balcony monitoring my progress.
Spa As I mentioned earlier, our hotel was right next to the spa. I'd been wanting to take this picture since we arrived, but when the spa was full of people it seemed a bit inappropriate. However, as we headed out for dinner all of the people had gone so I seized my opportunity.
Dinner Judith finally managed to get the cheese fondue she'd been hankering after all week. Obviously there was also beer.
Church I took this photo of the church with my phone camera. It's come out rather well I thought considering the low light and lack of a tripod.
Night Sky Back at the hotel I entertained myself for half an hour trying to get a decent photograph of the moonlit clouds above a distant tree-covered ridge. This was the best effort I managed.Distance walked today - 8.3 milesAscent today - 2,559 feetDescent today - 2.559 feet.
Clouds Friday - It was time to leave Leukerbad. But before we checked out of the hotel Leukerbad had time for one last surprise for us as clouds washed up and down the valley like waves on a shore. It was fascinating and I could have watched it all morning, but we needed to check out and get on our way.
Sofitel After a few hours of driving through busy Friday traffic (most of which was fortunately heading away from Luxembourg), we arrived at our next hotel, the excellent Sofitel in Luxembourg. This is a picture of their awesome atrium.
Room Lovely spacious room too. I think it would be fair to say that the beds in the Luxembourg Sofitel might well be the most comfortable I have ever slept in.
Elevator Atrium Can't stay here without taking a photo down the atrium next to the elevators.
JFK Previously when we'd stayed here we either ate in the hotel, or walked into the centre of Luxembourg city. However, being late Friday afternoon, there were a lot of suits leaving work and heading to the bars and restaurants in the business district. The business district is deserted if you turn up at the weekend.So we headed east on the Avenue John F Kennedy into unknown territory and after about fifteen minutes walking came to a pleasant looking burger restaurant called JFK. So we popped in there for a couple of beers and what turned out to be a really nice burger.
Room View It was almost dark by the time we made it back to the hotel. As awesome as most aspects of the Sofitel are, their views are not that impressive (although I suppose I'm comparing them to the ones we'd been treated to all week during our stay in the Alps. This is definitely a better view than the view of the bins we had at Euro Disney a few years ago).
Atrium I thought I'd better take another photo of the atrium now that it was illuminated. Looks much the same as the other one. I thought it might look more different than that.Time for bed.
Brugge After gorging ourselves at the excellent breakfast buffet in the Sofitel, we set off on the relatively short 190 mile drive to Brugge, where we would be spending Saturday night.For simplicity we booked in to our favourite Novotel, which has a convenient, accessible location and a massive underground car park right next door.The reception area had had a refurbishment since our last visit and was looking very pleasant indeed.
Sightseeing We had a reservation at Ribs 'n' Beer for 8:30pm, but it was still only around 2:30pm, so we thought we'd spend some time touring around our favourite spots (bars). First stop was the De Halve Man Brewery where the Zot comes from. It looked like they were setting up for some sort of concert in the square outside the brewery.
Zot In the brewery we had a light lunch and a couple of Zots. Well I had a light lunch. Judith had about a pound of pate.
Fiat 500 Those old Fiat 500s have a reputation for being quite compact, but Judith looks tiny on that ladder next to this one.Interestingly you can hire that for (I think) EUR140 for five hours to go sightseeing around Brugge.
A Square Looked nice so I took a photo of it. I don't know what it's called.
't Brugs Beertje We just happened to be walking past 't Brugs Beertje (one of Brugge's most popular [and tiny] bars) at 3:58pm and Judith noticed that the sign on their door said they opened at 4:00pm. So we hung around for, oh, about one minute and they opened the door. It only took about thirty minutes for the place to completely fill up.So there's a top Brugge tip - if you want to drink in 't Brugs Beertje, be outside the door at 4:00pm.
Beer Here's one of the beers I had in 't Brugs Beertje.
Hotel Beer Judith remembered that we had some free beer tokens for our hotel bar, so we headed there next for a nice La Chouffe.
Snuffel Bar The afternoon positively skipped by and before long we found ourselves in the wonderful new Snuffel Bar, which is mere yards from Ribs 'n' Beer, where we managed one small beer before relocating to...
Ribs 'n' Beer ...Ribs 'n' Beer. Did I mention we love Ribs 'n' Beer. It's properly awesome.A rack of ribs and three refills later, it was time to head back to the hotel.I'm pretty certain I could have handled a fourth refill, which would have been a P.B. but that would have been pushing the envelope, so I decided to play it safe.
Dog Statue Thing Here's an interesting dog statue thing we saw in the shop window while we were walking back to the hotel.
Reflections It's tricky to go to Brugge and not take at least one picture of the reflections on the canals.
Concert We detoured slightly through the square where they were setting up the concert earlier and the concert was now in full swing. We hung aroung for a while, but we were too tired and full of ribs and beer to stay for long.Time for bed.
Eurotunnel Sunday - Heading home and there was one final surprise in store for us. We were the very first car on the top deck of the train. I'm not sure I'd ever even been in the first carriage before, never mind been the first car in the first carriage. That makes for an even speedier getaway than the usual speedy getaway in Folkestone.
Ramp Through the door in front of us there was just the ramp back down.
Beer Obviously I couldn't end with a photo of the ramp on the Eurotunnel train, so here's a photo of another of the beers I enjoyed in 't Brugs Beertje.Even by the standards of the many great holidays we've had in Switzerland, this one was exceptional. We had stayed in some super hotels and the weather had been remarkable. I can't wait to do it again.Total distance driven this week - 1,520 miles, with Judith's lovely BMW having returned a very pleasing, fuel sipping 52.3mpg.The End.