Towards the mountains

 

It’s a white world this morning. The car park is slippery and Aimile has a covering of snow. We hope the roads will soon be clear. And it’s very cold, I’ve got layers of clothes, thick socks, fleecy pants, boots and gloves. Chris goes on a mission to check on Aimile and find something for breakfast – in France you’re never too far from a bakery. He finds some interesting, very tasty cinnamon buns and a small bottle of milk. Good news, because now we can fill our vacuum flask with hot water and make tea and coffee on the move. It hasn’t been that easy to find places for snacks in France and many of the motorway rest areas are soulless places with a bank of machines, no staff and no seating!

Soon we crossed into Switzerland, buying our Carnet of passage at the border. We’re out of the EU now and technically the currency is Swiss francs, but it is almost at Parity with the euro, so not hard to calculate. The toilets are another matter though. We’re quite near the Italian border, so we spotted a friendly AGIP petrol station. They always have good coffee. This one was no exception, but they didn’t believe in sitting down for coffee and tried to tempt us with tasty Italian meats and cheeses. But Chris had already bought a large filled baguette roll for lunch. Entrance to the toilets was by turnstile, released by putting a token in a machine. There were other banks of machines, offering tokens and change in exchange for Swiss francs or Euros. It was all a bit bewildering and people were wandering from machine to machine to try to make sense of the system. It seemed that two euros gave you an opportunity to pee and a credit for the café. I had no change, but a kind guy took pity on me, gave me a spare token and showed me how to get through the barrier. 

Thank you to this unknown stranger.