It's snowing!!

SWITZERLAND for more photos click here

Snow chains ?? on a motorbike??


From Grindelwald just down the road to Lauterbrunnen … but it doesn't look the same in the rain! The weather was so miserable we decided we really couldn't be bothered going anywhere – so checked into another hostel in Interlarken and camped out there for the day.
Today we have left Switzerland and travelled to Ravensburg to stay with friends for a couple of days. It was once again cold and wet as we set out, and in fact snowing on the first pass we travelled over. This was only about 1000m high, so we did a quick route change to avoid the other higher passes we had planned on going over and have travelled through all the valleys instead
We found out a couple of funny things about Switzerland – you pay for accommodation by the person, not on a per room basis – when we checked out one ordinary looking motel, they quoted 75 swiss francs ( about $120) but we were shocked to discover that was per person and was double for the 2 of us ( NZ$240 for the motel room). Prices went up from there. Mind you a single person has to pay a single supplement as well. We knew hostels do that, but didn't know hotels did as well. And they have a compulsory motorway road tax of 31 euros ( $60) no matter what you are driving and it is for a year - no reduction for a smaller number of days – daylight robbery. You can avoid it by staying off the motorways but its pretty difficult to do this as we found out ( all the road signs lead you back onto the motorways) – the fine for not having a motorway vignette is pretty hefty, but we escaped without getting caught....phew. Got a flash from a speed camera at one little town as well, but it was from the front so no problem..we hope..and we deliberately have not washed the number plate for 3 months.