Churwald - health and safety Swiss campsite style!

Friday 27^th

We witnessed a new caravan being craned into place today – Swiss campsite style. The old one had its snow roof ripped off, then was lifted out by a truck that had appeared.  No ropes attached to guide it – they used a plank. It was a bit dodgy to say the least. The new one was lifted in a similar fashion – this time they struggled to stop it swinging about and it nearly smashed into the lorry cab! A bit of frantic pushing with a ladder avoided any damage . The owner then clambered right underneath it whilst it was suspended. Eek. £20k plus of Hobby caravan being dangled about with minimal control.

it nearly went wrong!

our pitch - lift behind us

This was a very peaceful place to be despite being very close to the village centre. Lots of farming activity to watch above us on the valley sides - muck spreading season.  Poo.

view from other side of valley

campsite on left - winter caravans clearly visible

start of 1/2 marathon - up a mountain range

Big mountain day - Furkapass & Oberalppass

Weds 25^th June

Big pass day! Our aim was to head east along the valley towards Chur. So after our morning walk we had lunch then headed down the road to the valley floor. We only met one bus so no major problems. Nice and steady does it. 

Once through Brig the road headed up again until we were in the most spectacular hung valley floor. Very wide with towering mountains either side. We arrived at Oberwald to join the end of a traffic jam. When it moved we saw the remains of a traffic accident. Not nice. The road snaked up to the junction of the Grimselpass and Furkapass. We headed up the Furka – see the pic of the road. What a feat of engineering. The road up was steep but wide and well surfaced, the road down was narrow with minimal barriers and very tight in places. Tina was mentally exhausted by this time! 

Grimsell Pass in the distance

we have just driven up this!

We continued through Andermatt and up the Oberalppass. Biking heaven. We were parallel to the rack and pinion train  which was snaking its way up the mountain. Great to see so we slowed down to take a pic. When we arrived at the top -2048m we saw some camping cars wild camping. We found a spot and joined them for the night. Lovely spot with panoramic views across a hydro power lake with the railway beside it disappearing into a tunnel. A waterfall just along from us provided the background music to soothe us to sleep. There was also a short lighthouse at the top of the pass road - 

what?????

rack & pinion railway

Oberalpppass wildcamping spot

bit wet

Thurs 26^th

Very quiet overnight but 2 deg C when we got up. The heating was on the timer so nice and warm in the van. The sun was up and the views in  both directions spectacular. We went for a stroll and met a 94yr old Swiss gentleman who stayed in his caravan up here for the summer. What a great character. He spoke perfect English (he had lived in India for 7 yrs) and used his train pass to pop down to Andermatt to do his shopping. There conveniently was a station at the tunnel entrance. Only in Switzerland. He explained that the lighthouse was a gimmick for tourists to advertise that the source of the Rhine confluence was nearby. The empty buildings were Army and built in the 20’s. What a waste. 

lighthouse - tourist board gimmick

train station at 2048m

disused Army buildings

The drive down was good on narrow roads into the valley approaching Chur. We looked at and rejected 2 campsites before we arrived at Churwald , 8km above Chur. Good decision. There were 2 ski lifts right by the site which explained the abundance of “caravaneige” (campsites open for winter, usually for skiing) permanent caravans. Friendly campsite man who spoke about 3 words of English, so an interesting conversation. The toilet block was 5 * with auto everything. Wonderful.

Zinal - back into Switzerland

Sun 22^nd

Pitstop at Lidls (now Tina’s firm favourite) then we retraced our steps back over the Simplon pass into Switzerland and along the valley to Sierre. Turn left and 20km up a very twisty, narrow road to Zinal in the Val D’Anniviers. We had unfinished business from our summer hols in 2013. No snow on the Simplon this time but we stopped for lunch at the top. Beautiful – and cool. We heard a commotion outside – a parked, driverless Italian camping car had started to roll downhill! The Swiss camping car owner next door to us had ran after it, jumped in and jammed on the brakes. Saved. The owner had left it with the handbrake on but not in gear. Brakes cool down = handbrake slackens = potential disaster!!!! If it had kept rolling downhill it would not have been pretty…….. he was a hero and showered with gifts by the very grateful owners. Good man.

We had a good drive up the mountain to Zinal it didn’t seem as daunting as last year – probably due to the miles we had driven up and down mountains since setting off. We parked up just as the rain and then hailstones arrived. 10 mins later it stopped. Tea time. There was another van in front of us which looked like a long termer with generator outside, car parked behind it and up on wooden chocks. The owner eventually appeared next morning and was a very friendly Swiss man who worked in the new refurbished swanky swimming pool in the village.

old hut on stilts

our source of water

sound of music..........

Zinal is a lovely calm village right at the end of a valley with skiing forming the main focus of it’s tourist industry. In summer it is open for walking with lots of routes and one open lift. We paid our tourist tax – CHF10 (£6.50 approx) for 2 days. This allowed us to stay free of any more charges and also gave us free access to local buses, lifts and the swimming pool. Great deal. Water was from a nearby fountain.  Sorted.

cable car arriving

We stayed 3 nights and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery and mountain air. A bit of cycling for me, a walk up to near a glacier, a swim in the new pool then a final walk down from the top on the morning we departed. The walk was down the steepest, twistiest path we have ever done. See pics of Tina on the bridge. Oh, and the rocks and roots were wet from rain!

big kid ( I did it first!)

clouds below us

aire in distance

slippy when wet

Vinci, home town of Leonardo

Thursday 19^th June

Leonardo day!  We left the campsite earlyish and drove all of 10km down the mountain to the free camping car sosta just outside Vinci. I drove the van and Tina rode the scoot down in front of me. Slowly.

There was about 4 vans already parked up so I chose a slot alongside a French van with shade. I jumped out and was greeted by the French lady who immediately asked if I could move to another space so that they could get their table and chairs out! In my best French I reminded her that this was a sosta / aire and that you cannot expect to have space for tables!  I told her that I had parked here to get the shade and was not moving. Bloody foreigners.  I did shuffle our van over a bit to maximize the space between us.

free sosta in Vinci

We pitched up and scooted up to Anchiano a tiny hamlet 3km above Vinci where Leonardo di Vinci was born. Great views from amongst the olive groves. We watched a video presenatation which was very informative about how the illegitimate Leonardo was raised and the overall timeline of his life. Very well done.

Leonardo Di Vinci's birthplace

view from Anchiano

Back on scoot and down to Vinci for museo 1 which contained some very accurate scale models of his engineering ideas. He was most definitely ahead of his times when you study the detail in his sketches. Some of the crane designs were incredibly complicated and of course all powered by humans / animals.

model of a crane design

computer images

self propelled cart design - model built in 2004

We had an ice cream then into museo 2 – Leonardo the architect and renaissance technology in general. He  very clearly refined and improved many designs including how to cast cannon barrels. The 3D animations were brilliantly done and helped explain his ideas. A very interesting insight into Leonardo the engineer and architect.

view from roof of museum

Vinci - Anchiano in distance

Friday 20^th june

We decided to use the autostradas for our big drive back north to the lakes. The state of the provincial roads are so bad we couldn’t face hours of crashing and banging over potholes galore. A very good decision as the autostradas we used up to Genova and then north to Lago D’Orta proved to be pretty good and quite cheap compared to France. The tunnels around the coast and Genova made us feel like moles by the time we emerged into the Po “rice” plains. I first said to Tina that there were what appeared to be paddy fields either side of the road – surely not? She checked in the guide book and yes we were in the main area for the production of rice in Italy! There were hundreds of paddy fields with weird metal wheeled tractors working in them.  Interesting.

We arrived at Lago D’Orta a bit tired but not too shaken. This is a small lake to the west of Maggiore and much quieter. We ended up in camping Punta D’Crabbia . Again we squeezed our van onto what seemed like an impossibly small pitch. The camp owner was very cheerful as we were taken by electric golf cart to inspect the pitch. No walking here! Shady but a bit noisy as we were right above the road.

View from Orta San Giulio of Isola San Giulio!

classic boat

do we have to go up them all?