Saturday the 4th September
Today we escaped the traffic of Geneva after a lovely big breakfast at the nice hotel, and drove along Lake geneva towards Interlaken. We finally made it to Lauterbrunnen just before lunch and had a bite to eat at our hotel, which happened to have another mountain view!! YAY!! We thought we would try our luck and see if we could get on the Jungfrau railway that afternoon, rather than having to wait til the morning. Luckily we were able to grab a ticket for the late afternoon train.
Jungfrau station is the highest railway station in Europe. The train trip itself took about 2 hours from Lauerbrunnen. It's a cog railway and goes up and through the swiss alps up to Jungfrau mountain. At the top there is a beautiful ice castle and an outdoor viewing area where you can look out over Switzerland and the alps. Up even further is an indoor viewing station with a viewing platform outside with a metal grate that you walk over, so you can see straight down as you are walking, not so good if you have vertigo I imagine!
Unfortunately on the way up to the mountain we were delayed a little while on the train, so we only had just over an hour to see everything, which wasn't enough. And the day was quite cloudy. But overall it was a wonderful experience.
After we got back it was about 7.30pm. We decided to go into Interlaken for dinner and found a beautiful place to grab some food. We were sitting there and someone in the bar next door started playing the accordion and they were all singing, it was quite a nice atmosphere and the food was wonderful. Probably the best meal to date! 
More Piccies to Enjoy!!
Mel and Brendon xoxo
Friday the 3rd September
We are in Geneva at the moment, but this morning we woke up in beautiful Chamonix. As I said in my last blog, mountain view room, was wonderful to wake up to! After crawling away from bed with the beautiful view, we ate breakfast and made our way over to the world famous cable car. The cable car goes up the mountains and crosses over into Northern Italy. The summit of the trip is near Mount Blanc, which stands at an amazingly tall 3800m. All I can say, is that was the most beautiful experience I have ever had in my life The whole way you overlook spectacular mountains and it is just breathtaking, literally… You are 4000m up and the air is very thin up there. Brendon and I would walk up a flight of steps and have to sit down because it just exhausts you!
These photos don't even do it justice, it was just amazing. What a way to say goodbye to France! And Brendon had never seen snow before! Well he has now, and he was very excited about it!
Driving into Switzerland took us a little while. We kept going on the scenic routes and ended up crossing the border a few times! I think including Italy we were in different countries 5 times! Blows your mind a bit being an Aussie!! It was amazing! It is just so beautiful around here! There are mountains everywhere, and lovely houses and buildings. The roads are beautiful and windy and it s just the most amazing experience. Although when we got to Geneva that was a different story. There were bikes everywhere and they just ride out in front of you. And it took us over an hour to drive a 5 minute drive. It was pretty but by that stage we were completely exhausted and all we wanted to do was go to bed. After an obstacle course of finding the hotel, we went and found a place for dinner and happened to get seated next to some former Aussie turned Swiss people - so we had a nice chat, then went back to the hotel and crashed.
Highlights of Today
Here are some more photos of the mountains and our fantastic day!!
xoxo
town was lovely and relaxed and we wanted to spend the rest of the holiday there! But we knew we had to move on to make it to Chamonix before dark so after a few hours and a lovely meal, we headed off
Lowlights of today:
(This is the view from our hotel room on the right)
Lowlights of Today
Lowlights of Today:
Monday 30th August
Woke up after a little sleep, the room in Nice is so beautiful! Its huge! It divides into two rooms so yesterday Brendon and I managed to spend a few hours apart while he was watching a movie and I was uploading/writing the blog and reading. As for spending almost every waking moment together, it is actually going better than expected. We have had the occasional time when we have been frustrated with each other, but we have managed to get through the last week and a bit without yelling at each other or even raising our voices. Apart from a few times in the car arguing over directions, but honestly it was usually the stupid GPS's fault! This trip has really been good for us!
So anyway, after waking up we took the car in to get repaired, only to discover that they didn't have the glass they needed to fix it and it wouldn't be in till Wednesday. Considering that we had delayed the trip out of Nice for a day already, we were a bit worried, but they managed to arrange for us to get the car fixed tomorrow in Avignon. Only problem with that was that the glass was still flying around everywhere, so thankfully they put a plastic covering over it and vaccummed up all the glass for us so that I wouldn't cut my bum while sitting in the passengers side. After that was all sorted for the day, it was after 11 so we decided to go out and about in Nice to see what it was all about. I had heard that it was lovely, and I have heard about the French Rivera and how nice it ishere, but nothing could prepare me for the beauty that is Nice and its surrounds!. I have never seen such blue water in my entire life! Just spectacular! The promenade in Nice runs for a number of kilometers, from the airport right into the city centre. I just couldn't believe the blue water!
We parked the car and wandered into the main shopping part for a while and did a bit of walking around. Brendon wanted to get a sim card so we could call locally here a bit cheaper! But we were waiting in Orange for about 45 minutes and the line was so long that we only just made it back to the car in time before getting a parking ticket! By this stage we were exhausted from running, and wanted to go back to the hotel room for a rest!
After a little nap, we decided that it was now or never to go into Monte Carlo and take a look at the place. We grabbed our swimmers, planning to go for a swim on the way back in the crystal blue water. We didn't make it for a swim in the end. Monte Carlo was amazing! Even just the drive in there was beautiful! All these highrises pop up and they are all beautiful. They just fit into the landscape.
Monte Carlo has the Mediterranean ocean on one side, mountains on the other side, and a city in the middle! It is all at different levels and is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen! We found a reasonably priced car park and went for a walk along one of the wharfs, admiring the billion dollar boats and cruise liners. We wandered up to a magnificent park around the back of the casi
no area. The park is built on top of a hotel. The views were just to die for! You could see the Italian alps and the ocean for kilometres and kilometers. We were only planning on staying for an hour or so just to check it out but we ended up there for over 4 hours! The casino overlooking the ocean was something else too! Outside it there is a roundabout and every 2nd car that goes around it is some expensive extravagant make of car. There are people everywhere ready with their cameras to take a snap of the Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys, and rolls royces (forgive me if I spelt any of these incorrectly, cars are not something that interest me!). Including Brendon who was happily taking snaps of every shiny car he could see! Amazing the amount of money that must be in that place! It was just something else!
After we decided it was time to head back to Nice, I was a little disappointed, and wanted to move to Monaco! But we headed back to the hotel and freshened up and went out for dinner along the promenade. I was famished by that stage so we randomly picked a place to eat and it was FANTASTIC!!! They had so many vegetarian options and the food was SOOOO YUMMY!!! And we couldn't even fit all our desert in! SO we rolled back to the hotel, watched a movie and fell asleep.
Highlights of today:
· Monaco/Monte Carlo
· People/car/money watching in Monte Carlo
· Walking in the Monte Carlo park, walking on the hotel
· The blue water along the promenade
· Dinner at the promenade 
· Nutella Crepes by a Monte Carlo bay
· The male waiter attempting to pick Brendon up at dinner
Lowlights of Today:
· The line at the Orange phone shop
· Not being able to get the car fixed today
· Having to sprint 3km to the car before the parking ticket ran out
· The traffic back from Monaco
· EUROPEAN DRIVERS!!! OH MY GOD!!!
Sunday the 29th August - Marseille/Nice
Woke up this morning in Marseille and quickly ate breakfast and moved on. We decided to go on the scenic route to Nice. We found a nice little scenic route on the way. It was very narrow. Not quite enough for two cars to fit through, but the views from the top were worth nearly driving off the cliffs! So we stopped in a little town near Frejus at about 1pm and thought that we best grab some food. The town is right next to the Mediterranean so we were quite excited about eating right on the water. We found a nice little place to sit and eat, in the sun right on the beach. It was a beautiful lunch in a beautiful spot and we had a wonderful meal… That was until we got back to the car. Someone had tried to break in through a little window next to the front passenger w
indow. The glass went absolutely everywhere. Luckily they either couldn't get in or they were interrupted and didn't actually get into the car. Lucky for us because all our luggage was in there (except for our electronics and passports which were in our backpacks on us). So anyway the passenger side was full of glass and it was a Sunday afternoon so there was nowhere open for us to get it fixed. So I had to sit in the back for the rest of the trip while Brendon had to drive slowly because when the car went over 90km an hour it blew glass right into our faces.
And to make matters more annoying, we had to spend the majority of the afternoon in the Frejus police station making a statement for the insurance. It took AGES and by the time we finally got to Nice and checked into the hotel it was after 6pm and we were exhausted. And of course the hotel was out near the airport and we were not really able to drive into town with the glass everywhere and the open window. So we opted to stay in the hotel room for the night and eat at the little hotel café. Turned out to be a nice evening in the end, the hotel is lovely and we had in house movies! We also sorted out to get the window fixed tomorrow, so decided to stay an extra night in Nice rather than leave straight away in the morning. Hopefully that will leave room for Monte Carlo tomorrow!!!!!!
