Switzerland

17th - 24th September 2023

17th - We arrived in Geneva Airport, mid morning and I just had time to eye up a virtual for later on in the week. We spent the rest of the day travelling up to our base camp, the hot air ballooning capital of the world🤔 and aclimatising to our surroundings.

18th - It poured down all day long which rather spoilt our trip to the picturesque hill top, walled town of Gruyeres. I managed to get off the mark with the Cheese Factory trad and then set off on the climb into the town. I mananaged to visit all the bases of the AdLab "Gruyeres" series whilst my wife sheltered in a pizzeria. There was a bonus for this one but unfortunately it was at the the bottom of the hill. It was certainly a creaser coming back up.

19th - We had a trip to the capital Berne today. I said I'd just get the one but unfortunately I had two DNFs before I was successful. I had to drop down to the River Aare for the Keine Angst vor dem Blutturm trad and then climb back up.🥴 I managed to log two bases of an AL series too. We stopped in Fribourg on the way back to our base and I took the opportunity to tick another county with the Place du Marche aux Poissons trad.

20th - We had a mountain tour today and I was very keen to visit Gstaad. Not because of all the celebrities living here but because it was over a 1000m asl. A cache here would qualify me for a High and Low Challenge cache.😀 The trad simply named Promenade was at 1044m.😀😀

21st - We had a free day today to explore our base. The tour manager had arranged a walk along the valley for the party but my wife didn't fancy it so I took on my own to gather a few caches all between 902m and 958m asl. The scenery was lovely and I found six trads. I managed to fit in the Labcache Tour en Ballon a Chateaux D'Oex and also the bonus cache before returning to the hotel for lunch.😀

22nd - Today was going to be the highlight of the trip. We were going to catch the Golden Pass train from Chateaux D'Oex down through the mountains to Montreux. However the heavy rain on Monday had caused landslides on part of the track so we only travelled about ten miles on the train before we had to transfer to the rail replacement coach.🥴🥴 Montreux was a lovely place nestling next to Lake Geneva and we spent a few hours walking along the shoreline. I was able to add the Quai 345 trad at the station to the tally.

23rd - We travelled to Interlaken today and it was thrilling watching all the hang gliders in the air and landing in the park in the centre of town. I found the cunningly placed Bahn, Schiff, Bus, Taxi oder Pferdekutsche trad at the station. After lunch, we headed up the valley to Grindelwald, where I managed to sneak off and find the Grindelwald downtown trad which came in at 1034m asl.

24th - We were up at the crack of sparrows and heading back to Geneva Airport at 0600. I knew exactly what to do for the GENEVA AIRPORT virtual and this was the last cache in a splendid week in the Swiss mountains.😀

1 Virtual 3 Mystery 12 AdLab 12 Traditional

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