We've just spent the last week staying with Brad Turner in Chambery, which is in a valley surrounded by mountains in every direction. It was great to escape the hostels for a few days, and having a spare room at Brads was like a holiday from our holiday. On the night we arrived, we went to the local boules club for a beer or two with Brad's adopted French family, then went out for dinner at a great restaurant. We ate Raclette, a local speciality where a large wedge of cheese is mounted between two heating elements. As the cheese melts, you scrape it off, and pour it over little potatoes, and pile on cold meats. It was brilliant.

The main attraction in Chambery is a statue in the centre of town of the front half of four elephants facing in different directions. They were pretty nice.

On the weekend, we went for a road trip to Northern Italy. Nicola flew into Torino on late on Friday night, so we drove across through the mountains to meet her. We picked her up and went to find our campground which was on the other side of the city. Everything we'd heard about Italian drivers proved to be true, as we drove through the city there were car horns everywhere and red lights apparently don't mean much to them. When we arrived, we were greeted with closed gates, and no sign of life inside. Eventually we managed to wake up the gatekeeper, who let us in, and directed us to the playground to set up camp. How appropriate.

The next day we headed to another campsite by a lake near a town called Gravelona (I think). Due to the lack of signs on the freeway, we missed our exit, and ended up going via Milan, adding a couple of hours to the trip. With a service station map now on board, we eventually found the place, and were excited to try out the massive pool as it was a really hot day. Unfortunately for us the pool was empty, so we had to settle for a beer to cool us down. After a few beers, some red wine, and a couple of batches of punch, the sound of cold chisel from the car stereo had us patriotically standing (and dancing) and the Aussie flag even made an appearance. Not sure what the oldies in the campervan next door thought...

Nics had to fly home on Sunday night, so we headed back to Torino. We stopped in Arona, a town on the side of a huge lake for a gelati feast and a beer, then stopped in Torino for some great pizza. The place we went to had 68 pizza flavours on the menu!! We dropped Nics at the airport, then headed back to Chambery.

Brad had Monday and Tuesday off work, so we did a couple of day trips. Monday was to Annecy, located next to a beautiful lake. We hired a boat (much to Brad's delight) and went out on the lake with some beer, cheese and crackers for an hour. It was brilliant until it started raining near the end.

That night we went for dinner at Veronique and Daniel's (Brad's french family's) house. Veronique had promised to cook us frogs legs, so we were pretty excited. Turns out it was Veronique's birthday, so it was a big night. The frogs legs were really tasty, as was the wine and dessert.

On Tuesday we went to Chamonix, at the base of Mont Blanc (the highest mountain in Western Europe). We had planned on catching the gondola to the top of the mountain, but it was cloudy up top so we couldn't go. Instead we found a restaurant and sampled some snails. They weren't the most tasty dish, and the texture was a bit weird, but very French. The scenery around here was really amazing, unfortunately most of the snow was melted, but there was still some around.

Next we're headed to Switzerland for around a week of neutrality and order.