On Monday morning we took the ferry across the lake and drove up to Lake Lugano where we entered Switzerland. Surprisingly, it was easier than entering California in spite of the fact that people and our guidebook said we would need Swiss insurance and would have to pay a road tax.  As a side note, we made the whole trip without a single stamp being added to our passports.  We left Lugano and drove up the Autostrada and then took Nuefenenpass, across the Alps and then down into the Rhone River Valley.  The view from the top.    Southern Switzerland was everything you think of when you think of Switzerland.  Towering mountains, mountainside chalets, and streams that are that distinctive color of streams that are fed by glaciers.

We continued down the Rhone until we came to Lake Geneva (known to the Swiss as Lac Lehman).  There we stayed for two nights in Villenueve. 

  This was the view from our hotel room.

Tuesday, the 1st of August was National Day (like our 4th of July) so many things were closed but we did tour Chillion Castle.  This Castle prompted Byron to write "The Prisoner of Chillion".  It is a very complete castle and we took a lot of video so some unknown student can some day create a virtual field trip to a real castle.

We also visited the Vapeur Parc to ride model trains.  Most of these are scale models of steamers with a few more modern prototypes thrown in.  If we have any pictures of this, they are on a roll of film which hasn't been developed yet and I don't want to overwhelm my server limits by putting video clips here.

Wednesday, our last full day in Europe, we drove up to Basel in the first rain of the trip,  to see old friends. 

Thursday we flew back to the US of A.