Switzerland has been on our list of places to visit since we came to Europe. But for whatever reason we have always ended up missing it. We decided that this was the trip to make sure we took in the alpine splendors of the Swiss Alps.
It was a relatively short drive to our first stop for the day at St. Ursanne in the French speaking part of Switzerland. This time we were on local roads most of the way and they were very quiet, so we got to enjoy the French countryside. While it definitely takes longer it is a very different view of the country than the Autoroutes where you are steaming along at 100kph.
There was still a border post when we entered Switzerland, but all they did was put in some barriers to slow you down enough for a bored looking Customs/Immigration officer to get a good look at you as you drove by. He wasn’t interested in us so we carried on to St. Ursanne.
St. Ursanne is a small village that looks much like it did 100 years ago. We pulled into the campground and checked in and were asked for 40 Francs. Switzerland does not use the Euro, and we had no Francs, but in the end he settled on €45. Now we have to find a bank to get some Swiss Francs.
Once we had François set up for the night we hustled to the town as it was supposed to rain this afternoon. The town was very pretty, and quite compact. The primary industry is tourism so all of the restaurants and stores take Monday and Tuesday off after working the weekend so it was very quiet today, which we enjoyed.
After taking in the sites around town for a couple of hours we saw the rain clouds starting to roll into the valley so decided to head on back to François. We are now snuggled down and our plan for the rest of the day is to use the good internet connection to treat ourselves to a couple of shows.
