Day 8, Tuesday 4th November
Florence, Italy - Piano di Voglio, Italy
CAMPING RELAX, ITALY
The Florence sojourn draws to close and the lights quite literally go out over morning coffee. The fuse box in the huge mansion is found, light is restored to the apartment and Grandpa Pete and the Child Bride pack to leave. They leave enriched with art and food and benefiting from the leisurely and paced 3 day digestion of them both. It is a sad goodbye they wave to the Contessa who has the day to prepare for her evening event, the US election party. After an emotional parting the pair return 5 minutes later to retrieve the Rabies vaccine they have erroneously left in the Contessa's fridge. This oversight has occurred despite the Child Bride writing RABIES on her hand each morning by way of reminder.
A bus to the south western outskirts of the city takes them over the building works of Florence's new tram system. Arriving at the garage at midday, the English speaking mechanic looks more worried still and explains that the car will not be ready until 16.00. With a 4 hour wait GP and the CB determine to while away the hours locally rather than attempt to rejoin the throng of central Florence. Retreating to a local workmans' caff, on consideration GP is happy to be waiting for a job well done. Though when the entire staff of the Land Rover garage file in for lunch studiously avoiding their clients' eyes, it becomes more apparent what the 4 hour period is to be spent doing.
Understanding that even maestros need nourishment they slip away and move from café to café through the afternoon dodging downpours. In the last café, the waitress is unleashing a spirited, not entirely malicious, tirade in voluable Italian at a slight redheaded man who seems resigned to it. When the pair try to buy some sliced bread in faltering Italian/hand signal, she joyously flies into a rapid and convoluted outpouring. She too resorts to hand signals, tapping at the wooden shelving and the countertop, all smiles. No wiser, they leave with unsliced bread and the conclusion that she had been saying "but the bread I am selling you is as hard as wood".
Back at the garage the expansive Buddah figure is again leaning half inside Gordon's engine and is soon finished. Bills are paid, hands are shaken and GP and the CB are back on the road. Reconfiguring their onward route once more they are keen to move so move without a plan, heading north to Bologna to see what happens. Asking at a petrol station they are directed to a campsite in Piano di Voglio. There they are welcomed by the lady at reception, her husband opens the gates and welcomes them with his own announcement: "it has been raining for two weeks".
It is pouring with rain, but the camp has covered picnic tables to cook under and they cook up more spoils from the Florence market. Camping Relax has basic facilities but, most wonderfully, a bar with a huge roaring fire. Here they while away the night with only the owner and family as company, the husband pausing occasionally to provide an update "23 days of rain" or to point out how high the water level can get against the building. Inside Gordon's tent all is warm and dry and the Duvet of A Thousand Fires impervious to the cold.
Day 9, Wednesday 5th November
Piano di Voglio, Italy - Dormaletto, Lake Maggiore, Italy
Gordon is saluted as he pulls away, a man, seemingly resident at the site breaks off sweeping the leaves from outside his caravan to pay his respects. Heading north past Milan the original plan had been a sojourn in the sunny lakes to relax for a few days. Coming off the motorway, up and over the hills the road pitches down and begins its twisting descent to Lake Maggiore, stretched out and glistening grey in the autumn light.
On reaching the lakeside the sunny retreat looks less likely as the rain begins. The 19th Century villas look dirty and shut up and an 'out of season' gloom prevails. The tourist office is shut. A sodden pilgrimage from campsite to campsite as dark falls is to no avail, all are shut, some are derelict. As thoughts turn to hotels the last chance campsite at least is populated and a man in broken English directs them back the way they came to the only open campsite on the lake. "The lake is everywhere" he adds enigmatically.
Back they go to the Las Vegas bright lights of Camping Holiday Inn which had all the facilities of a holiday camp but was also eerily deserted with staff decidedly unresponsive when found. Looking back that they were faced with paying customers in this anti-camping weather might not have been their first thought on seeing the pair. But a Seikh man soon jumps up, interrupting his dinner to don his Wellingtons and find a pitch for Gordon in the pouring rain.
Too wet for cooking, dinner is taken in the restaurant and an early night is had.
Day 10, Thursday 6th November
Lake Maggiore, Italy - Gruyere, Switzerland
GRANDPA PETE IN GRUYERE HIGH ST
The Lake really is everywhere. From the vantage point of Gordon's tent the lake is easily seen only 20m away, lapping at the undercarriages of caravans. Woken by the roar of another Land Rover, employed to pull the flooded caravans from the jaws of the lake, a rescue operation is clealy underway. Inside in the restaurant, the manager is involved in another rescue operation. While Grandpa Pete and the Child Bride try to extract breakfast he is involved in delicate and intense discussions with a suited man at another table. He breaks to serve our coffee and apparently having reached a conclusion indicates that the man must sign a cheque. This done the man walks behind the bar and takes up his position while the manager hurries off to join the caravan rescue mission.
GP and the CB head north, round the angry, choppy lake with the upturned carcasses of pleasure boats strewn on the surface. Gaining height through the mountains, water streams down into the River Toce, full of silt. Climbing steeper they head for the Simplon pass and snow. Reaching 2005m, the snow lies 2 ft thick and they cross the border into Switzerland. In biting cold, they are glad to clear the border without having to get out of the car. On the other side, they find Swiss currency and a small wooden chalet for lunch. The restaurant is remarkable only for its comprehensive approach to sanitary arrangements. There is an automatic toiler cleaner that rotates the seat and sanitises it on flushing and a note on the door threatens a fine for leaving the toilet 'untidy'. GP and the CB eat lunch under intense scrutiny, with the man at the next table unable to take his eyes off them, positively ignoring his companion in order to monitor them.
Unable to take the attention any more they head off down the other side of the mountain for striking views of pine trees in autumn, all golden brown. This is striking but clearly wrong, something is attacking these evergreens en masse. There is no time to investigate and soon they are being chased down the Rhône valley by fighter aircraft in the hazy sun, surrounded by terraces of yellow vines. Soon they reach Lac Leman and an elevated skyway carries the motorway, stacked one lane above the other around the edge of the lake. Down below, perched on the edge of the water the Château de Chillon of Montreux takes the breath away but soon they are turning away from the lake and North, to Gruyère.
After the Italian downpours GP and the CB determine not to spend the night under canvas and have booked a room at a swiss chalet guest house, La Ferme Du Bourgoz under the management of the gregarious Mme Murith. Despite her little English and the CB's French, Mme Murith's is able to direct them to the chalet, which sits at the bottom of the hill below the walled town and 13th century castle of Gruyère. After unpacking in the cosy pine clad bedroom, they mount the hill for a little light supper.
They settle on one of the many quiet restaurants and are hosted by a neat and efficient Swiss lady who punctuates every action with the word 'Service'. This perplexes them as it seems to be an order to them, but they eventually understand it to be a salutation.
With a nod to the local delicacy they make sure they include in their order a little of the local cheese but otherwise try and steer away from the heavy steaks, meat dishes and fondues, which will set the tone for menus for weeks to come. The CB selects a modest cheese pancake. What arrives is a deep fried mountain of molten cheese, coated in breadcrumbs. The cheese onslaught has begun and it will be many days before GP and the CB can leave.
Day 11, Friday 7th November
Gruyère, Switzerland - Bern, Switzerland (by train) and back.
GRUYERE, THE CB'S SPIRITUAL HOME
The constant features of the breakfast table at Mme Murith's for the next few days are Grandpa Pete, the Child Bride and Gruyère cheese. Other guests come and go. Daytrippers from Geneva or France come to sample the cheese, enjoy the mountains or go to the nearby spa at Charmey. In Mme Murith's kitchen all guests come together around the Aga for her freshly brewed coffee or chocolate, home made preserves and two enormous slabs of cheese, made on the Murith farm. A peculiarly English game proceeds, ostensibly one of sharing the cheese but actually of making sure that after passing it round, it returns to your side. The CB misunderstands the game of manners and allows the whole of one slab to fall onto her plate before GP can hurry it back to the communal plate.
GP and the CB have an ulterior motive for this leg of the journey. Their visa for Iran awaits them at the embassy in Bern so they take a double-decker train into the city. They arrive at 13.05 and the embassy has shut at 12.30, to reopen on Monday. So in less good humour they set about uncovering Bern. Inclement circumstances may have prejudiced their view of the city, but Bern seems a place sapped of energy, the people zipped up and watchful. Middle aged couples promenade, arm gripped in arm, avoiding eye contact. Descending the steep hill down from the consular district of Thunstrasse a wonderful view of the River Aare is revealed. At the bottom, a concrete pit houses a majestic but frustrated brown bear with little to do but gnaw at a wooden post. This is a tourist attraction.
A tram trip to the Paul Klee museum takes their minds off ursine exploitation but Klee baffles them. GP and the CB's cultural home lies somewhere between prancing bears and abstract painting but Bern does not help them find it.
Back in Gruyère, the evening kicks off in a modern gothic bar themed on the lines of HR Giger, creator of the Alien films. The ceiling is vaulted, with skeletal ribs of concrete resin and moulded plastic swivel chairs at the bar are moulded in the outline of alien forms. These chairs incongruously house the real life form of neat Swiss businessmen in woolly jumpers and comfortable shoes. Button eyed and watchful, as ever they avoid eye contact as they sup their solitary beers.
BERN, NO BEARS
Day 12, Saturday 8th November
Gruyere, Switzerland
GRUYERE'S TWIN PEAKS
Day dawns and after a hearty cheese breakfast the Child Bride and Grandpa Pete are resolving to move on from the country chalet idyll and take to the tent again while they wait for the embassy to open. Mme Murith's hospitality intervenes and she offers her back garden up as their next pitch, with a nightly rental (itself the subject of some debate between M and Mme Murith) to include breakfast.
Without much idea of where they are going, the pair set off for a walk with some outline directions from the Tourist office. Seeking the Route des Comtes, they pass into the Swiss Alpine countryside. Here Swiss cows seem markedly different to their lugubrious English cousins. Cheerful and frivolous, they gambol and frolic, and walk over to greet you as you pass.
After about 10km of forest and pastures GP and the CB are escorted into Bulle by a youth who has punctured his all terrain bicycle tyre. The CB is now hungry, so the pair seek sustenance. A fine café yields an excellent range of crêpes. These are taken with coffee, and then they are given a mystery card by the waitress, apparently entitling them to free roast chestnuts in the town.
Searching the town for supplies all becomesa little more clear. Bulle is celebrating. Celebrating what is not clear, but the town is festooned with colourful balloons and much fun is being ignored as the townsfolk go about their lives unmoved. Food and essentials acquired, the pair escape on the narrow gauge train back to Gruyère.
Back at Mme Murith's camp is swiftly set up and a sumptuous lentil stew is prepared and devoured beneath the twin peaks of Gruyère and a starry night sky. On his return from a hard day's cheese making M Murith regards the camp with some perplexity and wishes them a good night.
Day 13
Sunday 9th November
Gruyere, a walk to Les Moleson
WALKING OFF THE CHEESE IN SWISS HILLS
Another fine cheese breakfast. Quizzed by other residents on their voyage, they explain their destination is
In
They take to the hills anyway through crisp autumn sun, heading for a funicular and a chair lift to the peaks they have admired from Gruyère. Neither is operating so at the end of the walk they fruitlessly scour Les Moleson for lunch and then tramp back down the main road to eat humble (cheese) pie back at the first factory.
The rural Swiss buck the trends of their
Day 14
Monday 10th November
CAMPING @ MME MURITH'S
The impossible has happened. The Child Bride has had enough of cheese. In the interests of politeness she manages a morsel for breakfast. Gordon is decamped and prepared for the road. Mme Murith insists we pop in for a proper goodbye and welcomes the camp rubbish bag with a wry twinkle in her eye "Ah, un cadeau pour moi?". Her warm kitchen will be much missed.
The visa business of
Visa in hand they turn Gordon North, to
GP and the CB have now established a technique of finding their destination, in lieu of reading the GPS instruction booklet. Based on the feline method for finding their way home, GP and the CB plough Gordon through suburban and city centre streets in ever decreasing circles, until they fall upon their destination. An added complication in
That their grasp of German is as good as their grasp of macramé is not a problem. Germans not only have superb English but a desire to go out of the way to help. At the campsite the manager appears out of the dark and sweeps them up into a new realm of organisation. Chilled out, he doesn't flinch at Gordon where most find him a conundrum - is he a car or a tent or a caravan? Where do you sleep? Their pitch, internet access, electricity supply, 3 possible 10 minute walks to town, a route back to the motorway for the morning and probably all their Christmas presents are sorted within about 10 minutes.
With down and outs in the streets, women of a certain age out alone in purple, and the hippies resident at the campsite, this seems a world away from Switzerland. But as the full moon lights up the pitch,