It took us about an hour to find our way
out of Turin and back onto the motorway we needed. The traffic
system there certainly hasn't improved since 1969 and the signposting is
dreadful. Several cries of 'red-light-red-light' on the
walkie-talkies as we tried to find our way through the maze. Once we
found the motorway, we headed towards the mountains and the Mont Blanc
tunnel on the way to Geneva. This wasn't the most direct route, but
the weather was good and we decided it was about time we saw some of the
snow we'd heard about.
Christian was decidedly shakey about the
thought of going through the tunnel, but was very brave about it after
we'd all convinced him it was the nicest route. The road signs were
saying we needed snow chains, but we decided we'd take a chance without
them, and luckily we didn't need them.
Karen had a doze in the back of Sput while Christian was
driving and I got a chance to take some pics while the Minis amused
themselves on the nearly empty motorway.
We reached Geneva about lunchtime, finding parking
spaces fairly easily compared to our experience two years ago. We
walked along the lake and found the same jetty that we'd lunched on last
time and had a delicious lunch of home-made vegetable soup, which tasted
better than any I've ever had before. The local birds kept us amused
picking up our crumbs, and devouring the stale roll I'd not eaten from my
packed lunch the day before.
We even came across a
'Woody Clubby' parked along the edge of the lake, so I just had to take a
picture of him.
After lunch a quick look round the shops and some
souvenir shopping (including some Swiss chocolate). After the Minis
had worked so hard escaping from Turin we had to take some pics of them
with their haul!
Leaving Lake Geneva, we decided to take the scenic route
to Beaune, rather than the motorways, with a quick stop to take some
pictures of the Minis in the snow - and the guys couldn't resist a
snowball fight while we were at it!
It was dark by the time we reached Beaune, just in time
to check into the Novotel and have a quick drink before dinner. It
was the first Thursday of the month and we were missing the monthly Ace
meet, so both Max and I were wearing our Ace Cafe tee-shirts. After
dinner we had a phone call from the Bandits at the Ace, which made our
evening. With all the excitement we made one deliberate mistake - we
forgot to pick up our maps and instructions on how to find the hotel we
were going to in Paris - a source of much hilarity the next day!
