Just returned from my four day trip to
the Etape du Tour, and what a trip it was!
On Thursday morning I flew to Geneve
via London with my friend David. Flights themselves were fairly
uneventful, but the seeming endless security checks at the airport
drag on a bit.
Once in Geneva, we loaded David's bike
(in a case), plus our luggage into a taxi for the short trip to the
hire dépôt
where we'd arranged to hire a van. This proved to be our first
introduction to what Switzerland is like – the trip of 2.8 km (1.7
miles) cost a staggering 50 Swiss Francs (£33, 42 Euros, US$51)!
Once
at the dépôt
we collected our van using a mixture of my broken French and the
receptionist's broken English. So it was out onto the roads of Geneva
in a left hand drive Renault Master. (I'd only once before driven an
LHD car, and that was a lot easier than a big van.) link
I'd
programmed my Sat Nav for the village we were staying in, and it
insisted that the quickest route was via Geneva city centre, so I had
fun driving an unfamiliar vehicle with restricted vision, reversed
controls on the 'other' side of the road through busy traffic.
However I did get to see Geneva's major landmark, the Jet d'eau familiar to anyone who remembers the 60s television series The Champions.
We
arrived at the border, and were surprised to find it manned.
Switzerland is probably
the only country in Western Europe with a land border that isn't just
a sign at the side of the road. The heavily armed border official
signalled us to stop, so we explained (broken French again) that we
were Scottish and were going to the Etape du Tour. He had a quick
look in the back of the van, then signalled us to proceed.
We
crossed into France and it was a fairly straightforward hour and a
half or so to our base in Argentière,
near Chamonix Mont-Blanc. We had arranged to stay in David's boss's
apartment, so it was a case of find it, move our luggage in, go to the
local shop for some food, and build up David's bike. The apartment
had the most amazing view from its balcony.....
More later......
Left hand drive...no problem, says the American. Having never driven a right hand drive vehicle...gotta imagine it would be strange. Like the first time I rode an old English bike with shift and brake reversed from "normal".Looking forward to seeing the rest of your trip.
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