With yesterday’s very wet start I was a bit stumped what to take pictures of, then, as I put on my rain suit in Interlaken Ost station car park I knew it was time for a bit of trainspotting!

Switzerland is a real public transport delight; buses, trains, lake steamers, it has the lot. Moreover thay all run as smooth as a Swiss watch. Interlaken is a real centre of activity West Station interchanges between buses, trains and steamers; Ost, buses, standard gauge and metre gauge trains.
This is a Berner Oberland Bahn metre gauge train that serves the ski centres of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen. These trains are rack and adhesion, meaning that they only need to engage the rack between the rails on the steepest bits of line.

Zentralbahn trains run on metre gauge tracks from Luzern to Interlaken and call here at Brienz.

They connect with the Brienz -Rotthorn Bahn steam powered mountain railway trains. This is one of the loco’s used. It’s quite new, built in 1996, oil fired, rack and pinion, and geared drive to boot…lovely!

You may be wondering why it looks like it is kneeling down? The boiler is mounted like that to ensure that the firebox crown remains covered with water when on the slopes of the mountain.

The valve gear, a beautiful bit of kit!

Then, after surviving the Grimsel, we called into Gletsch, HQ of the Furka Pass Steam Railway. This metre gauge rack and adhesion line is the old direct Furka Oberalp Bahn route that was taken over by preservationists when the F.O. Opened it’s new diversion tunnel in 1982. Trains only run at weekends, so I was out of luck and had to make do with a couple of Phots around the yard.

Later on I was delighted to find that the view from my balcony in Domodossola included not only the mountains, but three railway lines! So I sat out in the late evening sun, writing the blog, eating my supper and watching the trains go by! Good eh! Mrs Dookes would have hated it!

This is one of the piggy back trains that runs through the Simplon Tunnel, hauled by dedicated Swiss electric loco’s.

…and how the lorries are carried. Sorry about the standard of those last two pics, but it was getting dark!

So there you go, motorbikes and train spotting in one day, can’t be bad!

Dookes

Hello people.

Harley and I are Currently sitting at a service area immediately south of Turin with a flat front tyre!

Which is as the title says….

It happened just as we were slowly pulling away from a toll booth, which is immediately prior to the service area. So no harm done, better than at speed, eh!

Waiting for recovery to arrive. Still beautifully warm and sunny. Service area sells great coffee and now having some Italian ham and salami for lunch. Better than a service area on the M4!

All part of the adventure!

Dookes

Hello people.

It’s an absolutely beautiful morning here in Piedmont, northern Italy. Warm sunshine, just had breakfast on the terrace…it’s going to be a hot one!

B&B is very nice, set in lovely grounds that are well tended, charming owners who speak as much English as I do Italian, which ain’t a great deal, but hey it works!

Breakfast was absolutely full of sugar, brioche type breads, biscuits and jams and coffee as only the Italians can make. So I’m now totally wired for the day ahead!

Have a good day everyone. Arrivederci!

Like a loaded gun, chasing shadows on the run…

Dookes

Sorry if my posts yesterday were a bit glum and not up to the usual light banter, but there were a few things that took the edge off the day.

Firstly the sad news that one of our Plymouth UK Chapter members, Andy Marriott ( Transplant Andy) passed away on Friday. Andy had not been well for a long time, but it still kicks you in the pants. My thoughts are with his wife and family.

Next up, yesterday, just before Evian les Bains I witnessed a small dog getting hit by a car, he was hurt but not killed, car driver did not stop. Plenty of others did though, which was good.

Later on in a village near Gstaad, I saw a cat run out into the road and get run over by another car, again the driver did not stop. I pulled over and picked up the cat and carried it to the side of the road where it died. Couldn’t find the owner, but it was a lovely big black and white cat in good health and with a collar on. Somebody loved that cat.

Having animals of our own, it sort of got to me.

So there you go, that’s why.

Dookes

Excusez-moi si certains mots français n’ont pas les accents corrects, mais j’ai du mal à les amener à travailler sur mon iPad! Alors, le monde moderne!

Dookes

I couldn’t resist this photo opportunity outside a supermarket near Chinon.

Translated it says:

“Increase you power of seduction!”

Need I say more?

Dookes

Hello my faithful bloganaughts and a very good evening from Zweisimmen in the Bernese Oberland mountains of Switzerland.
This is the view from my hotel balcony, nice eh?

First off, let’s get down to Bond business. Did he do it as Fleming wrote? I doubt it.
Bond had watched his quarry eat a picnic then head off along the N.79 to Macon. Our boy gets to the eastern outskirts of Macon at 13:00hrs, the traffic was busy and he needed to fill up and check the water and oil.
He follows Goldfinger over the river into St Laurent, then rams Tilly Masterson’s Triumph. After a suitable exchange about blame, Bond is coerced to take the girl to Geneva, but she is dispatched to buy lunch! “A quarter of an hour later they were on their way”.

The intimation is made that it will take them two hours to the Swiss city, it took me three and I cut the corner at Bourg en Bresse, never mind it’s still a good read!

Macon was lovely this morning, it’s quite a mixed place some parts are not so good, but the old town is great and very French, if you get the drift.
The Hotel de Ville.

This is the bridge that Bond and Goldfinger use to cross the Saône, one of the great rivers of France.

From Bourg, Harley and I nosed off towards the Jura mountains and crossed the Gorges de L’Ain at Pont de Serrieres.

The road steadily climbs into the limestone scenery, which is made up of the same kind of oolitic limestone rock that forms the Cotswold Hills. Jurassic period of geological history gets it’s name from the Jura Mountains, where the rock was first identified; Jura is actually an old Celtic word meaning “wooded” and they certainly are that!

Also in the Jura we came across Fort de L’Écluse an amazing fortress built on two separate levels to protect France from invasion via the Rhone gorge by the warlike Swiss! It was near here that Bond stopped for lunch with Tilly.

As we neared the Swiss border we departed from Bond’s route, the book takes him into Geneva and then onto Coppet where he discovers Goldfinger’s factory…we’ll catch up with Jimmy tomorrow; today we headed for Evian les Bains, where the famous mineral water comes from, on the shores of Lac Leman (that’s Lake Geneva in English).
Gotta say I was pretty under impressed with Evian; it’s like an upmarket Blackpool that doesn’t know what to spend it’s money on, except blue rinses and fake tans!
The local accent is also pretty hard to understand too, but the lake …… blimey we’ve just ridden to Lac Leman, that’s awesome! So is the lake.

The road from Evian to the Swiss border was less than impressive and well past it’s sell by date. Then, bingo, pass through the border gate and there’s Swiss efficiency for you, the road becomes lovely and smooth, like a bar of their chocolate!

I had to drop into Montreux and say hello to an old friend, Freddy Mercury late of the band Queen, I can’t believe it is nearly 24 years since he died. He had a home in Montreaux and after his death a bronze statue was sited on the shores of the lake in memory of him. The music of Queen became synonymous with innovation, slick production, constant surprises and good old rock and roll. I can still remember the awe that I felt when Bohemian Rhapsody was first released! Freddie was the front man to measure all others against and yes, his lifestyle was instrumental in his demise, but a world without Freddie would have been much less colourful and fun! So, you great pretender, I salute you and say thanks for the music and the memories.

Leaving Montreux we immediately started climbing, lovely bends everywhere on the way to Col Des Mosses, 1445m (4741ft).

Very…hmm, Heidi?

From there it was but a short trundle to Zweisimmen at 945m.

Todays milage 201; yesterday’s, cos I forgot to post it was 346. The trip total so far is 892.

Back on the Bond trail tomorrow, film version this time!

For I must be travelling on now, cos there’s to many places I gotta see.

Dookes

OK hands up, I’ve been a bit tardy with the references to our old mate James Bond.

The film is wonderfully vague, but in the book JB follows Goldfinger from Orléans to Nevers, then south to Moulins, here they hang a left on the N79 towards Macon.

Now Ian Fleming must have been in dream world when he wrote that bit, because the times are impossible to do even today, let alone in 1959 when the book was first published. The book tells us that JB watches Goldfinger eat a picnic lunch at 13:00, then Bond recovers a gold bar that Goldfinger hides by the road, JB follows Goldfinger to Macon, buys lunch for himself, runs into Tilly Masterson’s car, picks her up, motors on towards Switzerland and has lunch himself at the pass before the Swiss boarder! His Aston must have been fitted with warp drive!

Well today, we are pretty much faithfully following that route from Macon. Hold on tight and we will find out how long it takes!

Saddle up baby, ride on next to me.

Dookes