Another Swiss Adventure
 

A couple of folks emailed me about the tale of nearly falling down a mountain in Switzerland.
I’ve managed to find some photo’s taken during another visit that did not run the correct course to the village. Bit coincidental but this was due to a big end failing in a Volvo B10M.
Once more staying in Ovronnaz and would you believe it taking the party on a trip over St Bernard pass into France for a day trip (said it was coincidental). As usual I had a young trainee driver with me and I was letting this chap drive through Martigny and start the climb towards St Bernard. Part way up the big end went. OK, I wasn’t sure at the time but it sure seemed like it. Proved correct the next day when Volvo Martigny stripped the engine down. Being the hero, read that as stupid bugger, I took the wheel, three (make that about seven) point turn and headed downhill carefully. Kept the engine ticking over to keep the battery charged and used the retarder instead of the brakes. Obviously took it easy and had a pretty long queue behind me when I reached Martigny. Took it straight to Volvo and organised a local coach to continue the day trip. That’s why I knew where to get a coach when the Scania failed a couple of years later.
Martigny Volvo started the strip down but the company I worked for decided that because it was not a warranty job the Swiss prices would be too high and it would be cheaper to tow the coach back to UK. Funnily this was at the time Yugoslavia kicked off and we had an empty coach escaping from there. That driver had a couple of adventures but nothing to do with this tale apart from the bullet holes in the side of his coach. They were only little ones, honest. This guy diverted and had a night at my hotel and then took my party and my trainee home.
I stayed for a few days while our tow truck made the journey from Wigan to Ovronnaz, took him six days. Nice few days, was able to explore the area and take long walks over the mountains, brilliant. Volvo tow truck arrived with a very nervous driver, I actually walked down the mountain to meet him at the motorway junction and directed (read nursed) him up the hill. After that I did all the driving.
Next day, down to Martigny, suspended the coach and set off home. Broke Swiss law ‘cos you can only tow off their motorways, but I didn’t know so drove on and used motorway to the French border. Managed to get away with that. The company had warned me that I was in for a boat load of trouble trying to tow from Switzerland into France, but both frontier posts just waved me through.
Then drove overnight to Calais, sounds simple, it was, knowing the road and where we could dine and shower helped. Managed to get a ferry just after 9am. Again no problem they just waved me on putting me at the front so I was first off. The only problem I had the whole journey was Dartford Tunnel, they would not let me go through without an escort. I had to pay for both vehicles and the escort. They stopped the traffic to let me in and then drove at 20mph in front of me. Too bloody slow, I was on my way home so I pushed the escort vehicle until he pulled over and waved me by, we popped out the other end doing 70mph. We were going home. Next stop Wigan Garage.
Left Martigny about 9am one day arrived home in time for tea the next day. Pretty good for a suspended tow.


There are so many photos I am going to split this into four posts.

1. Journey uo to Ovronnnaz by coach (Note that I have thrown in a couple of photos of a different coach, I wanted you to see the local)
2. Arrival of the tow truck
3. Tow journey home
4. General views of the road.

Arrival of the tow truck

Tow journey home

General views of the area
Including my summer ssnowman

Another great journey Ray, but thankfully not as scary as the other one. Would love to drive those roads with that scenery, but in something considerably smaller, if you can call an A8 'small'.

Thanks for sharing that Ray +++

It’s stunning over there, it amazes me that when you look out of the windscreen whilst driving it is so pretty it doesn’t look real. It looks just like postcard pictures. There’s not many places in the world as nice.

When we go we are towing a twin axle caravan which with the car is roughly the same length as a modern coach ( goes around tight corners a bit easier though )

I took the 8 on a long road trip just over a year ago, and we drove through Switzerland North to South visiting friends in Zurich before heading to Lake Como.

As Simonbartlett says, an astonishingly beautiful place.

The weather was a bit hit and miss when we went, but still enjoyed the breathtaking views throughout.

Here's one I posted in the Driving Bliss section, overlooking Lungern Valley on the way to Interlaken - sorry for the filthy state of the car!

I'll sift through the rest and share some others shortly, they're worth seeing!

Interlaken - between lakes.
Very beautiful area.
Driving down to Lake Como In the summer I used to go over the Gotthard Pass but winter had to stay on the main road.
Great fun scraping snow off the windscreen in August!!!
Some of the high passes I used to study the Postbus timetables so that we did not get jammed, rather narrow roads.

What an adventure. :ROFL:

I urge you all to go driving around the Alps for a few days though if you haven't experienced it. It's a grueling day of driving 1,000+ miles driving from the UK if you want to get to anywhere tasty, or the alternative and more civilised way is to fly to Milan Malpensa (£40-£45 return from London most of the time) and hire a car from the airport for the occasion. Can do the same from Geneva if you wish. If you just want to chuck around a fun little hire car and admire the views, then you can hire something like a Fiat Panda / 500 or, Smart ForTwo, Citroen C1 or similar from Milan usually for the grand sum of €10 per day. I'm a fan of the Panda so that is my personal recommendation, although at one point you could hire an Alfa 4C for 4 days for €400!

From Milan it's just a short drive north to Lake Como (Como town itself or Menaggio are nice places to stop at for a coffee) and Lake Maggiore - take your pick or do both. They are beautiful. From there, you've got an almost infinite number of stereotypical Swiss mountain passes to aim for whether you go west (Val d'Isere via Turin?) or north/east to Lake Obersee via Davos. Val d'Isere is a ghost town out of season but if you do visit or go through Val d'Isere then leave to the east and go up through the mountains - the road is absolutely stunning and you'll thank me later. Lake Interlaken is nice to drive around but sadly Interlaken is become more and more commercial every year.

It takes a bit of planning to see them all in the most efficient order so as not to be driving back on yourself but you want to be taking in as many of the mountain passes as you can - Susten, Grimsel, Great & Little St Bernard, Furka, Splugen... just Google 'Swiss mountain passes' and go from there. I've done the routes on a few banger rallies in £500 cars and an old Jag XJR which was quite perilous on some of the tight switchbacks at the top of a mountain. I'm not keen to do it in a coach any time soon :ROFL:

Four days is a good time to aim for I think, allowing for 5-6 hours of driving each day and a few stops in nice places, then look around on Booking.com or similar for a hotel in a place each night, returning the car to the airport at the end of the final day and fly back.