A real border crossing!

Monday 5^th May

We have left France for the next few weeks and are now in Switzerland and headed for Italy. Travelling south today the landscape changed from open farmland into wooded hills and mountains. Our first stop was Colmar for morning tea. Thank goodness we had a bit of time up our sleeves because this town was worth more than just a coffee. We spent a couple of hours wandering the streets and then extended our cup of coffee to a sandwich and cake for lunch. Colmar is not far from the German border and has a very German look and feel to the houses; lots of exposed wooden beams. A very pretty old town centre with a canal running through the town. We didn’t do the canal ride – we will save that for Venice.

 

Just a few street scenes of Colmar.
 I loved the exposed wood on the buildings.

There were still quite a few tourists in town
even though I don't think this is on one of the main tourist trails.
At least one large group of Japanese tourists.

At least one very low bridge we saw on the canal
as all the tourists in the boat ducked to get through.

From Colmar we headed East deciding that we would drive down alongside the Rhine River. We were cheated! The road does run alongside the river and only metres from it but the river has high banks and you don’t get to see a thing. Not sure if the river cruises run this far up river (Basel) but there really wasn’t much to see between Colmar and Basel. The road though was excellent with no towns, flat, not many bends and 90 all the way - apart from one strip which was 70 and had police at either end ready to catch the unaware! We were OK.

The Rhine river
- only access point we found before we found the lock.

We did find a place where we could access the lock at Kembs (not far north of Basel) and we stood and watched as boats went up river and then down river. It was quite impressive to see the lock fill and then empty – the drop must have been at least 50 feet.

We saw the lock fill to let these boats pass up river.

And then this barge passed through going down river.

And another heading up-river.

Alongside the river at the lock there was a nice green grassy strip and here we found the mobile home crowd sitting in their deck chairs watching the river traffic. I don’t think I have actually mentioned the camper van crowd before but it seems in France that there are what look to us like car parks where you can set up home for the night. For example in Oradour sur Glane there were campers that were set up camping in the car park where we parked to visit the town. In Sarlat there is a car park right near the old town centre where vans can stop any night apart from Friday night because of the market on Saturday. This all seems to be free camping.

You need your own facilities but what a backyard!

We crossed into Switzerland about 3.30 this afternoon and this was one border crossing we knew we were making. First they actually had some sort of gateway and markings, and second there were customs people there who stopped us and asked were we carrying cigarettes or alcohol. The only other time we were stopped by customs was crossing from Spain back into France.

Tonight we are in a B&B in Fluh which is about 15k south west of Basel. We had to stop in Basel on the way here to get some Swiss Francs at the bank – why doesn’t Switzerland use the euro like everyone else!?! The owner of the B&B speaks a little English and a little French so we are getting by. She has converted a couple of rooms in her house to take in guests – the house is a little ornate, tizzy, OTT, but Sophia is a very thoughtful hostess and has brought us platters of fruit and drinks. We plan to go out for dinner but if I eat all this fruit I might not need to.