Final Blog: Last night we had a few beers in Geneva centre, and then had cheese and wine supper back in our room, which had BBC and ITV. At the first bar we ordered two beers and a plate if chips to share. I was slightly concerned that the only currency I had on me was a note for 200 Swiss Francs (approx. £132). I offered this to the waitress and she didn't bat an eyelid as she dished out our change. Compare this to in England when you flash a £50. On the wa...

Rotterdam to Geneva: Completed. Today was our last day as we made the short trip into Geneva. We tried to stay close to the shoreline of Lake Geneva. Initially, this was not possible because the coast was divided up into private strips, each with a posh-looking residence hidden behind high trees and hedges. Each residence had its own strip of private beach together with its own moorings. After this des. res. stretch, we came to a beautiful sandy beach. Today t...

Interesting how, in SW Switzerland, there are French speaking towns and German speaking towns very close together. For the most part, they don't seem to be bilingual. In general the Swiss have been pleasant and of good humour, especially noticeable after the, more often than not, serious and grumpy Germans. We now left Yverdon-les-Bains and headed south to Lausanne (pronounced, for some reason, by Jackie as Lucerne). This is on the centre of the north coast of ...

I don't know why the map doesn't make sense. The website does it automatically. It should go simply east from Rotterdam then south through Germany and France into Switzerland. /////////////////////////////////////////////// Last night we found a nice bar for a beer. Then had a soak in the bath (our first room with a bath!), before going out for a good pizza and some less good Chianti. Finished off the evening in an Irish bar. The Irish bar that didn't do stou...

It took quite a while to navigate our way out of Basel today. With hindsight we should have chucked our bikes onto a tram that would take us to a southern suburb. But we didn't think of that till later. The tram system in Basel is amazing. There's no point in running for one as the next one is only a couple of minutes behind. They have trams on tracks, trams with normal tyres powered from overhead lines and a network of bendy buses. The result if all this invest...