London one-way!

We were up early this morning to join the BusAbout tous – destination: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.

Our BA people, Owen and Alanah, are really nice. Although we hopped on the bus just after 8am, we had a half hour stop just outside Nice at the Parfummery. This French girl gave us a tour about making perfume, and her English understanding was very good, but some of her pronunciation was oh-so-funny. She said there are only 150 ‘Noses’ in the world, people who are experts at picking scents for perfume, most of them French . They cannot smoke, eat spicy/flavoursome food or drink alcohol to ensure they are the best and keep their gift for the smell, and they only work three hours a day. But this girls is like, ‘I like pizza, I drink, I smoke, I do not care to be a nose, but I can still tell you all the scents here by the smell!’

Lija said last time they told here all the famous perfumes are ‘created’ there and then made elsewhere – like ‘Tommy’ and celebrity perfumes. I bought a nice fruity one called Fantasy – she got us to smell a whole heap and then told us the prices – 33euros, about 60euros cheaper than retial prices, and 17euros if you buy a pack of five. But they let us buy a box and pay separately, us three went in with Scotty, one of the guys on our bus.

We only have about half a big bus worth, so we all had a seat each. We drove from Nice, along the coastline, through many mountainside tunnels, across the border to Ital – no probs – along the coast until Genova, where we began to head inland, north, passing through Milan and Como (been there!) and over the border into Switzerland.

Our afternoon stop was a roadhouse just over the Italian border, so thez still accepted euros, but we got Swiss francs from the ATM. We watched some movies today on the bus, but Alanah said she doesn’t put the movie on at first in Switzerland because the scenery is just so beautiful, and she was right – the lakes, the Alps, the goats! hehe She put the movie on when we had to go through 17kms worth of tunnels through the mountains.

Some interesting facts we got told: even though S’land has been a ‘neutral’ country since 1812, every person does a year minimum of service, and then is available for active duty for the next 22 years. The country can lock down its borders in 6 minutes flat. Landlocked between other countries the dialect is a mix of Swiss with either German, Italian or French, depending on where you’re closer to, although German is most often used.

Lauterbrunnen is just a very small village, but its advantages are the scenery and surroundings. It is a train ride from the highest peak in Europe – Jungfrau, it has over 72 waterfalls in the valley, including a short journey to underground falls.

We’re staying in a cabin at the camping ground – because the contiki bus parked wonky (crap) Owen did this awesome reverse park between it and another BA bus – so high five on that one! We didn’t get in till 7 so it was too late to go to town but the camp site has everything from kitchen to ATM to shop, bar, restaurant – which was not the best in price but Lija and I tried the traditional ‘Rosti’ which is like a potato pancake covered with cheese and I also had tomato and basil on mine. It was so mmmnice!

 

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.