Bonnes vacances

Grüß Gott
guten Morgen
Gudde Moien

We have just returned from a wonderful holiday in Bavaria.
We had a week in Schliersee and it was absolutely magnificent. So picturesque and stunningly beautiful.

View driving along to Schliersee

View from our hotel room in Schliersee

Biergarten on the lake

Typical Bavarian house

Main Street of Schliersee

Sunbaking and hiking and eating were our main activities. I know, it sounds bizarre to say we were sunbaking in Bavaria but that's what we did.

Bill doing it tough in Bavaria

The hiking was pretty amazing as well.

One day we caught a gondola up the mountain at Spitzingsee and climbed down which took us nearly 2 hours. The old knees were giving us hell by the end of it. But the views were worth every ache and pain.

Riding up in the gondola at Spitzingsee

Hiking down the mountain

We hiked around both lakes at Schliersee and Spitzingsee.

Spitzingsee lake

Just beautiful. As was Switzerland as well. Except for the roadworks in every village we went through.

Our Tom Tom had us going through 3 Swiss mountain passes so lots of hairpins bends and lots of snow storms through each pass. We were worried that we weren't carrying snow chains (who would of thought we would need snow chains at the end of summer) and may break down on one of the passes with only one jumper between us. But alas, we made it though them all safe and sound.

Driving through the Swiss alps

Getting near to the top of the first Swiss mountain pass

We are already planning to return to Bavaria and Switzerland and hope to arrange a house sit sometime next year.
On the way over we stayed for 2 nights in Besançon which was magic.

Besançon

The citadel was amazing and they made perfect use of a place which they had to spend money maintaining by setting up a zoo within the fortress.

View of the old city of Besançon from the Citadel

There were monkies placed within the moat - seemed like a natural habitat.

There were a lot of Australian animals including kangaroos (big reds), kookaburra (looked lonely as only one of them) plus animals such as Tigers and Lions and very colourful birds from South America which we had never seen before.

Besançon Citadel

We thought it was a fantastic use of space and bought a whole lot of different people visiting the incredible fort.

When we left Bavaria we stayed for 2 nights in Annecy driving around Lake Geneva and past Interlaken and signs to Grindewald.

Annecy market day

Annecy

Lake Annecy

We drove to Chamonix to have a look at where the rich and famous ski plus to have a gander at Mont Blanc. Friggin' amazing with the glacier heading towards the town - although Bill said it was a receeding glacier - didn't look like it was receeding to me.

Mont Blanc

Chamonix with Mont Blanc just appearing in the background

Glacier Mont Blanc

There's just so many amazing and wonderful places in Europe that we have yet to see and explore. Probably will only scratch the surface in the time that we are here but the more we see the more we want to explore.

Our next adventure is to the Vendée region of France (the west coast) for a house sit. We will get to explore La Rochelle, Cholet and Il de Ray. So can't wait.

PS - Paving presque fini.

Wendy