Goodbye Montreux. We'll be back.

4/8/12

I soooo want to go to the Montreux Jazz Festival next year. We couldn't go this year because we were booked it to attend the Horizons Unlimited meeting in Greece. The HU date isn't set for next year so we might be able to do both if we're still in Europe. I hope so. Anyone want to join us?

http://www.montreuxjazz.com/

We squeezed all our gear back onto the bike and headed toward Calais. We knew we wouldn't get there today but it was in the right direction. We were very keen to get back to the UK for our friend Jo's birthday bash on Monday night. We should be able to do it I think.

A parting shot from Montreux.

Goodbye mountains, I'll miss you.

We covered a lot of of miles, and paid a lot of tolls on the Autobahn so it was a pretty uneventful day. In fact the most exciting thing we did was to put some oil in the bike. Oh yes, and I got a bug in my helmet and I felt like I had a hundred things crawling on my head. That was until...

We rode til we started to feel a bit tired and it was near Troyes. I punched Best Western into the sat nav and off we went. A combination of road works and closed roads left us geographically embarrassed and we ended up riding through a couple of pedestrian malls. Not again! I saw to coppers on scooters and thought "I hope they don't see us". They didn't, so we rode on, trying to find our way out of the pedestrian area. We rounded a corner and guess who was there? Yup, two coppers on scooters. I rode up to them and it turned out that they were both French girls and once I explained we were looking for the Best Western one of them told me to wait for two minutes. She wandered off and spoke to a few people who were obviously selling drugs, or murderers, or something equally as sinister then came back and indicated for us to follow her. I was happy to follow her anywhere. The bottom line was we had a Police escort the wrong way down one way streets to the Best Western. I'm just annoyed that we didn't have the camera out. I Invited them for a drink after work, just to be polite of course, but they were finishing at ten pm and starting again at five am so they declined. I must be losing my touch. I can't believe they knocked back a drink with a fat old bloke who probably smelt like a footy club change room.

The Best Western wanted 168 euros for the night. I don't think so. We found a new chain called Ibis Style. These are really trendy hotels decorated to attract the younger crowd, but we liked it as well. For 110 euros, with secure parking we had a cute room for the night. This chain is throughout Europe and we'll use them again. The deal includes breakfast and free tea / coffee / snacks all day. The hotels are designed from day one to be environmentally friendly. They recycle as much as they can, but the big thing is the building uses as much recyclable material as possible. The idea is that one day when the building is demolished, a large part of the material can be recycled. They are worth checking out. Or possibly checking in.

Old uncool guy blogging in a cool room, even if the side tables look like toilets.

The reception area.

The passages are bathed in a red glow at night time. The white lights are motion activated and only come on when you walk into the area. Suzanne said it's like being in a space ship.

Now for dinner. It was late Sunday night and not much was open, but I found a small pizza shop which filled the bill as far as our food requirements were concerned. While I was waiting for our pizza I played with the owner's parrot. I think it was a King Parrot, and it was very cheeky. It was a good finish to the day.

Where's Rex's Buff?

Meet Diane. French and fantastique.