From there, we stayed overnight in Lille, France and then headed down to Luxembourg, where a chap can buy cheap diesel! Tea at Pizza Hut, then a spot of sightseeing ...
They have a brilliant play-park in the centre of the City, so I hung around on this nice dustbin while Thomas tired himself out ...
Next morning, we headed for Switzerland ...
Stopped off at Bern, mostly so that I could see my cousins in the newly revamped bear pit in the centre of town. The bears have a nice big open space now - previously they were kept in a concrete pit. They have trees to climb, and nice open views along the river ...
Bern has a lovely "old town" area, the main attraction of which is the astronomical clock, the "Zytglogge" ...
Camped overnight at Thun, on the Thunersee Lake, then aimed for Italy across the Grimsel and Simplon Passes. The top of the Grimsel road was in clouds (about 30 feet visibility!), so didn't see much up there. Coming down the other side, though, the clouds cleared and we could see the Rhone Glacier on the other side of the valley.
You can actually stop at the hotel you see in the background, and walk up to the glacier in about 10 minutes. They've dug an ice-tunnel through it, which is nice and cool in the Alpine summer ...
The Grimsel road joins onto the road between the Furka and Nufenen Passes at the foot of the hill, and leads on to the Simplon Pass, at the top of which is a giant eagle statue. Here's me sitting on the edge of it ...
Down the mountain a bit, you reach the Italian border:
