European Road Trip Day 19

Tuesday 19 July 2022

Today we slept for a looooong time. Really nice after all those days in the mountains. But we couldn’t sleep for too long though, because the breakfast closed at 10 o’clock. So some time after 9 we dragged ourselves down to the breakfast area to have breakfast. A while later we were joined by Tove, one of the other participants from the alpine climbing course.

After having breakfast we would have to check out, because normally you need to check out by 10. When we asked though, we got extra check-out time until 11:30, so that was really nice! After that we went to Snell Sports to leave our boots that we had rented. Kim also tried on a swimsuit that she had also tried before the climbing course. But one of the small plastic pieces that makes you able to adjust the shoulder straps broke. It might have been worth it to buy it still, if it was slightly cheaper, and then change the plastic pieces to metal, but unfortunately it was super expensive and would not be sold for anything else than the original price, so we didn’t get it (and no, we just tried to adjust the shoulder straps like you normally do on every bra, and it broke. So no unnecessary force or anything).

We then went to the car, just tossed the packing inside and got going. We drove until Vallorcine, the last place before the border and tried to come up with a plan for the rest of the day. We didn’t know what to do in Switzerland, and we wouldn’t have any internet there. Finally, we took some geocaches in Vallorcine, then went into Switzerland. Kim wasn’t ready though, and hadn’t saved any geocaches offline yet…

So in the first city we came to we stopped by McDonald’s and used the internet there. We were really hungry though, but Kim managed to convince Lukas to not get food there (because it was expensive and not worth it) and instead we went to a super market to get food there. It was really complicated to get there though, with weird snaking roads and entry prohibition signs. But we finally got there, just half an hour before closing. We bought some things to eat, some fruit, some snacks etc. All of it for a reduced price which was nice, and we just managed to get out before they closed at 18:30. Our thought had then been to eat ice cream in town, but apparently everything closed at 18:30. All ice cream places, all super markets, yes, everything. Which for us seemed weird in the middle of a regular working week?

So we just kept going and when there was a longer Stau we changed drivers. We went all the way to Basel, parked in a parking garage by the train station and went to find a fun geocache in Switzerland. At first we tried to take one at the train station that was quite cool, but a little too hard for us with all the muggles around, so we finally gave up. Then we went and find another one. We had to walk a little bit to get it but it was worth it because this one was also a nice one (GC7GQ81).

Unfortunately we got back to the car after like 1 h 20 min so we didn’t got rid of out 2 CHF-coin. It cost 2 CHF to park for one hour, so we had to pay 4 CHF and then we had to pay by card. Too bad!

We then crossed the border into Germany again, and just did a stop for an easy geocache before we went to park for the night.

Start: Chamonix, France

End: Schutterwald, Germany

Via: Basel, Switzerland

Countries passed: 3 (France, Switzerland, Germany)

Drive time: 5 h 49 min

Distance driven: 392 km

Toilet fees: €0

Parking fees: €108 + 40 CHF (€108 for 6 days in Chamonix)

Toll: €0

Total drive time: 51 h 36 min

Total distance driven: 3482 km