Grim up North............!

Settling in at home again. The weather has been dreich, both dark and damp, since we arrived back last week.

Our journey back to Scotland was hectic but quite enjoyable. We drove, helter skelter, as always, through Italy, past Turin, finally stopping beside Lake Maggiore for a peaceful stop-over in a campsite on the shore. Then over the Simplon Pass and onto Saas Fee. There we celebrated my birthday with Sam. In the afternoon he took us to a glacial water feature where we walked around in an ice-cold pool then toddled (with frozen feet!) on various textured surfaces until we came back round to the water again! The idea is to clear toxins from the body and relax tension. Mmm! Fun though!.

{Beside Lake Maggiore}

We camped over night in carpark 4 which is an official camping car stop just outside the village of Saas Fee. The whole village is car free, being served by a fleet of rechargeable electric vehicles. We wandered around in the evening admiring the wooden huts on stilts and the shops with outrageously expensive price tags. In the dim and distant past we did ski here once one Easter. The experience was never repeated! (The snow was too icy and the mist was too thick.) This visit I did notice a lot of interesting looking footpath signs - but not for us this time.

{Parked below Saas Fee}

Next day we drove on up to Zurich via a tunnel trip in a metal cage-like train carriage. Interesting!
I had a second birthday dinner with Matthew and we stayed in his flat in Zurich. Parking is a nightmare in the city so if we want to stay longer any time we'll have to stay in the lakeside campsite and use public transport.

We left the next morning quite early, before the parking attendant started work, and travelled on up to Dunkirk for the ferry.

After another stop-over to visit my Mum and other relations, and then another wild camp in a layby somewhere in the Lake District, we finally arrived home.

Phew!

Since then, the van is unpacked, the washing piles up (waiting for the new machine to arrive), and the weather continues to be dreich..............

{My strange panoramic photo of Lake Maggiore - has a dream-like quality!?}