We sadly pack up for the last time, bid farewell to Louise, and head for home.

Thursday July 20 we got up for our last croissants in Neuchâtel and packed up our stuff for the trip back to Paris. We were booked in for a night near the airport before flying home.

Au revoir, Auberg'Inn and your funky 5 bed room.

Au revoir Places des Halles and au revoir to you as well, Neuchâtel. Maybe this
time it will be less than 27 years before Alexandra returns again...

Mommy takes a turn at flogging Louise through the mountain passes
on the way back to Paris.

We stripped the Duster of all the personal bits we'd accumulated over the last 3
weeks and with a little pat to the bonnet I took it at the Eurodrive drop point.
Well, sort of. I got the the Eurodrive office where they asked for both keys, upon
which I drove back to the hotel to get the other key, then dropped the car. It had
treated us well. Hopefully the new owner appreciates the break in we provided.

We treated ourselves to a family size 3 room suite at the Hotel Mercure Charles
de Gaulle. 

I polished off the last of my stinky cheese collection while frantically trying to
catch up on some blogging. 

The hotel restaurant was OK, in keeping with what you'd expect at an airport hotel, and the croissants and hot chocolate at breakfast were passable. Somehow we weren't disappointed. We all agreed it was maybe better this way. Our trip had been about great experiences (and yummy food) at all the fantastic places we went along the way. The airport hotel was really just a stopover on the way home. 

Friday July 21, four weeks to the day after we'd left Toronto, we boarded the plane for the flight home. We all felt a bit sad of course, but we all agreed we'd had a truly wonderful adventure together as a family. We had seen and done a lot and no one felt like we had missed out on anything.

The post trip blues will no doubt come and go for us over the next little while, but the memories and good feelings will see us through.

I wonder where we should go next...

Another two days in Neuchâtel and some things we did.

Wednesday July 18 was the big day for the visit to Alex's old school, Neuchâtel Junior College. Alex had contacted the Toronto office before we left Canada in the hopes that someone might be around who could give us a tour.  They set us up with Madame Lyn Perrenoud who had been there way back when Alex attended. She still lives in the area and is now the school's travel coordinator. Some things had changed, others were exactly as they were when Alex was last there. It's a lovely old building with a nice view over the town and lake from the back patio. It was interesting for all of us. Zita seems keen to go. They gave us a loot bag with chocolates.

Also Lyn said no problem we could bring the Duster by and leave it in the small lot, saving us the 25 CHF per day we'd been paying at the parking garage.

Arriving at Neuchâtel Junior College for our tour.

The College from the patio side. Dunc filled in a squirrel hole with gravel
while he waited.

After we left the school we had a quick lunch at the train station. The children did actually branch out here with some rice bowls and things like that. It was quite good. I had a salad of some kind that had soft cheese in it. I also sampled another Swiss beer. Can't say I'm as excited about that as I could be. They have decent beer but they're not really stretching any creative barriers with it.

Dunc got a little bored waiting for the others to finish lunch so he and I wandered through the train station and checked out some inter-city express trains and the like as they pulled in and out. We also went downstairs and checked out the funicular but he decided he didn't want to go in it as it seemed to be entirely underground. And it was too, much like a funicular subway. It only went down one stop towards the lake and then back up again for possibly a total round trip of one kilometer. Clara had no issues with sub-surface funiculars so she and Zita and I hit it up for a joy ride.

On the subway-funicular going down and back up for a little joyride. It

left from under the train station. Dunc didn't like the idea of an underground

funicular so elected to watch from outside.

Three minutes later we were back at the train station and we headed off to visit the Chateau and church.

On our way up to the Chateau, Dunc and Clara
 and I noticed this chimney. We wondered if
maybe the ladder was for watering the plants
growing out the top!

Now that we know what a pont dormant is from our stop at La Citadelle
 du Chateau d'Oléron, we could point out that's what we were crossing
here to get into the Chateau at Neuchâtel.

Looking out over Neuchâtel from the Chateau.

The church was interesting and I read that the painted ceiling is quite lovely. Unfortunately most of the interior is closed off for renovations so we did not see much. The old Chateau is now the government building for the canton. We wandered through it a bit but it was more interesting from the outside. Inside it seems to have been mostly renovated into standard offices and the like. I have noticed that practicality often trumps history in Neuchâtel. That night we rounded up some bits and pieces from the store and from the fridge and ate at the table in our giant room.

Eating in.

The next day we set off for some sightseeing starting with a trip out to where Alex used to live. We walked down to Place Pury and hopped the 105 bus, just like mommy used to do! Once we got out to Peseux (the old neighbourhood) Alex got us off the bus and heading uphill. We all agreed that she had not exaggerated about the climb. When we got to Rue de Rugin 35 we hung about for a bit admiring the view and surreptitiously checking out the house. There was a small child out on the porch but we didn't see anyone else. Alex was fairly sure any connection to her old family would have been long gone so we moved on.

Mommy used to go this way coming home from school.

The old homestead.

We wandered back down the hill and found a cafe for lunch. We couldn't see the shortcut that Alex used to take heading down hill. I think she said maybe it went from the bottom of the yard where she lived and so wasn't accessible without traipsing through the yard. After lunch we headed further down hill towards the lake and found a pebble beach to hang out on for a while.

Heading down to the shore between the vines.

Hmmm. Not quite as beachy as we'd hoped for...

...which mattered little to Dunc and Clara.

After the beach we wandered along the shore until we came across a tram stop for the trip back into town. It was a nice relaxing afternoon. I found it interesting though that we were a little quieter than on previous travel days. Some of us were a little more lost in thought. I think we already had that feeling that our lovely trip was wrapping up.

Waiting for the tram. So many modes of transportation to choose from!

Stopping for a little chocolate treat back in town before heading back to the hotel.

That night we had a great meal at one of the restaurants in Place des Halles
near the hotel. Sort of like the last supper.

Cheers to a wonderful family and a wonderful trip.

Mountain adventure day.

Ooh. First off I found better pictures of the big room we were in at the Auberg'Inn.

Zita's alcove is on the right next to the bar. Dunc and Clara are in the
foreground in this pic and Alex and I have the master bedroom over on
the left!

Detail of the ceiling beams and the crazy patterns on them.

For our first full day in Switzerland we decided we simply weren't high enough in Neuchâtel. We headed deeper into the mountains to a place called Le Châtelard. As it turns out, "deeper into the mountains" put us back out right next to the border with France, not far from Chamonix. In Le Châtelard there is a newly redeveloped attraction that involves a funicular, a train, then another funicular to get you up nice and high for a beautiful view of Mont Blanc.

Dunc patiently waiting for his sisters to get to the funicular station.

Seems steep says Dunc. Apparently the steepest
funicular in the world.

87% grade. Yup, it's steep.

Zita agrees. Steep.

Once you get off the first funicular, there is a small train that takes you part way around the mountain to the base of the mini funicular for the last leg of the trip. Before you get on the train you can take in the small railway museum and check out some bits of small mountain railway detritus. There is also a part-way café in case you are hungry from the first leg, and a small playground which we took advantage of on the way back down.

#1

#2

#3. I guess I could have put them all in at once.

The manual method to get around the mountain. 

The train from the big funicular around the mountain to the little funicular.

Clara takes it all in.

The little funicular for the last leg up. I neglected to
take a picture myself.  Thanks internet.

At the top there is a fully decked out restaurant where we ate lunch. What did I have? Baguette with jambon et fromage of course. Not up the snuff compared to France, but the Swiss cheese was good.

At the top there is also a sizable dam called Émosson that holds back a fairly large reservoir (Lac d'Émosson). The lake is partly fed from another reservoir higher up (that we did not walk to) that is in turn held back by another, smaller, dam. I think there is a small hydro-electric generator between the upper and lower reservoirs, and the lower reservoir also feeds a fairly large generating station downstream. 

We also saw a big parking lot. It turns out you can drive the switchbacks all the way up, saving yourself the cost of the funiculars, but missing out on the good times.

Dunc and Clara check out the dinosaur at the top. There are dinosaur prints
back in the mountains but it is a 5 hour round trip hike. Dunc was game to
go he said. So what if we got back at 8pm???

Dam! As in wow, there's the Emosson dam.

Dam! There are people out walking on it!

Somehow it was more scary hanging over and looking down than it
appears in the picture. 

Dunc and Clara with an old turbine from the generating station. 

I kept trying to figure out what this was for. It looks like a really bad idea for
 joy riding down funicular rails, perhaps thought up at a frat party or something.
Unfortunately there was no one around to ask. 

Once we'd had our fill of the lovely views (and lunch) we headed back down.

The big funicular rails again. Doesn't look
any less steep going down.

The drive back to Neuchâtel was uneventful. However I will say that driving in the Alps is lovely. It was particularly exciting driving the last half hour up to and down from the base of the funicular. Really good switchback roads with steep and breathtaking drops. Alex loved it too...almost as much as she loved the twisty roads in France except here there were no trees to block the view. Just a whole lot of nothing to block the view really. Sometimes not even a guardrail.

Some fill in info. We head for Switzerland with an overnight in Lyon.

We really loved the Dordogne. The house was perfect and we had a wonderful time. Before we head off, here are couple more pics of where we stayed.

Remember the view from the kitchen window? This is the garden below that
 view. The bedrooms were all downstairs and this is looking out the doors from
the master bedroom. Kitty corner to me is the old bread oven.

The oven. Door casting says 1618. 

Looking in from the upstairs doors. On the right is the extremely tight
spiral staircase to go downstairs.

Kitchen and dining room. There's a lovely view out both windows...

Patio and main doors from the direction of the pool.

Coming in the driveway. 

The immediate area around Lagrenie where we stayed.

The larger area around Lagrenie and Groléjac that we explored for the week.

Overview of where we've been since Paris. La Rochelle is on the coast
between La Baule and Royan.

The trip from our place in the Dordogne all the way to Neuchatel where we were headed in Switzerland was going to be a total of 6 or 7 hours. We long ago decided we couldn't be bothered to drive that far in a day. Lyon looked like a good half way point. We tried for some B&B places in the surrounding countryside, hoping we might even get to stay in a castle. However this is the only night we hadn't nailed down before leaving Canada and by the time we got around to it the cool places were all booked.

We ended up staying in a lovely place called the Hotel Ibis Budget Lyon Villeurbanne. I think Villeurbanne is sort of Lyon suburb. They had no family or connecting rooms so we got 2 room side by side. It was budget indeed with no fridge for my stinky cheese collection. In fact it was so budget that the toilet in the boy's room was one of those ones we often saw in public washrooms that had no seat. You're supposed to do the hover, which is hard for Dunc whose legs don't reach the floor! It turns out the girl's room had a newer toilet with a seat. Luxury. However the rooms were clean and comfy and it was just a stopover. No complaints.

The boys' room at the Ibis. Dunc liked the bunk bed.

After a quick settle in and a bit of research, we hopped back in the Duster and had Louise take us down to the old part of Lyon to search up some dinner. She does much better in urban settings. Or maybe it only seems that way because all the roads are paved! Anyway, while dinner was nothing to write home about, the old town was lovely and the patio setting at the restaurant was nice. We had a nice evening.

The next day we packed up again and headed for the Swiss border. We had to stop at the border and buy a pass for the highways. The Swiss don't mess around with toll highways. They just require everyone to buy a windshield sticker every year if they want to travel on the main highways at all. That includes visitors. Other than that, the border is wide open. Given that they are not part of the EU, we had expected to at least show our passports, but nope. On we went.

La Suisse

The mountains were lovely to drive in. Lots of tunnels too. I think we passed through one that was almost 5 km long.

Big mountains means lots of big tunnels.

We stopped in Lausanne for a nice lunch.

There's a 'hood called Ouchy in Lausanne. In fact it's not far from another part
of Lausanne called Maladière but I missed getting a picture of the sign.

We pulled into Neuchatel late afternoon. The place we were staying was in the pedestrian part of the centre of the old town.

Alexandra Campbell returns to Neuchatel
27 years later!

Our funky old room with 5 single beds. It was great. And it used to be a bar
which added to the excitement of playing restaurant for Clara and Dunc.
Thankfully there was a fridge for my stinky cheeses as well.