Liechtenstein, Switzerland and France. Days 9-11 of the trip

July 23. We got up very early, earlier than everyone else, and quietly left so as not to wake anybody. We were heading to Burg Gutenberg in Liechtenstein. The streets were empty because it was Sunday morning. We arrived at the castle and saw one car in the parking lot and a family taking photos nearby. At first we did not pay much attention to them, and then they greeted us in Russian. It was unexpected: in the middle of an almost deserted town by a castle we ran into fellow travelers, and it turned out they were from Lobnya. We chatted a little about which border crossing was better and then went off in different directions around the park. I did not find anything especially interesting in that castle itself.

We drove on. After crossing the border from Liechtenstein into Switzerland, we immediately started looking for a place to buy a vignette. We found one at the first gas station we saw. The Swiss vignette, by the way, was the most expensive of all the countries where we bought one, 40 Swiss francs. Then we kept driving and soon found ourselves in Austria again, and from there in Germany. There we wanted to visit Lindau Island, and we even drove onto it, but could not find parking. In the end we circled around and left. There was not anything particularly interesting there anyway. We drove along Lake Constance and stopped in some German town. We wanted to buy the sticker that allows a car into large German cities. We found no fewer than two Dekra offices, the service that sells such stickers, but one was closed because some school games were taking place nearby, and the second was simply closed.

Next we passed by Rhine Falls. I had already been there in 2012, but since my wife had never seen it, we decided to make a quick stop. We bought tickets and took some photos.

We drove on. The weather began to deteriorate, and we realized it would probably stay like that in Switzerland for several more days, so we decided at least to get to the middle of the country and spend the night somewhere there. On the way we found a beautiful place and stopped for photos. While we were taking them, a woman came up to us and started speaking Russian. It turned out that she lived somewhere nearby and had come there on a business trip, and if I remember correctly she was from Moscow.

We continued on. Our campground was already close, but suddenly the road started going up and up and up. We were already afraid it would be cold at the top, and with good reason, although in the end it was only cool rather than freezing. The campground was not too expensive, 25 EUR. It had a farm vibe, with chickens and geese roaming around and donkeys and other animals grazing in enclosures. One hen would not leave us alone while we were cooking. It kept trying to steal a piece of food, so we had to chase it away. Then a goose and a female goose ran around us, with the male trying to mate and the female escaping from him in little jumps.

When it got dark, we noticed that if you walked from the campground to the roadside, there was a beautiful view from there. We do not have any photos after sunset though, only in daylight:

July 24. We woke up to cloudy weather, but it had not started raining yet. While we were packing, the rain began. We had to move into the kitchen area. There we spent a long time cooking and eating, then kept planning our route, wondering what to do with the weather and whether it was even worth staying in Switzerland. In the end we decided to push on to France, but with stops in Montreux for the castle and in Geneva for the fountain. In Montreux we never found a place to park close enough. We parked farther away, and from there we no longer felt like walking to the castle, so we simply took a few photos on the promenade and drove on.

When we got to Geneva, we discovered that the fountain was not working. Then I wanted to drive through the district where I had been before, but I took a wrong turn and it was difficult to turn back, so we just kept going. After that came the town that Sveta wanted to visit. We ended up sitting in traffic there for two hours and left without reaching the place itself. A city-sized traffic jam, that would be an accurate name for it. By the way, once we entered France we came across our first automated toll machine with no person in it, so we hesitated a bit and the cars behind us immediately started honking. It reminded me of Russia. In New Zealand or Norway that did not happen, most people there are polite. But this part of Europe still did not feel very different from Russia.

We drove on, and at some point realized it was already time to look for a place to stay. Checking our app, we saw that there were very few campgrounds in that area. We found one, but it turned out to be closed. I spoke to the people staying there, and they suggested opening the barrier ourselves, driving in and paying in the morning. That is what we did. I think it was the coldest night of the whole trip. The navigator showed 906 meters above sea level, and we froze during the night. By the way, it was one of those municipal campgrounds in France, which are usually cheap. In the morning I went to reception and explained the situation. The woman said it was no problem and asked me to pay 12 EUR.

We drove on again. It was cloudy, with patches of fog and rain, and we were moving along all kinds of back roads. Most of them had just one lane in each direction, so overtaking was difficult. After a few hours the road began to feel more and more like the sea was getting close, and the weather improved. Passing through some small town, we stopped to buy cherries and peaches.

Our route then followed the scenic and supposedly dangerous road called de la Bonette, or at least that is how people described it online. I had also seen it in one of those YouTube compilations of the ten most dangerous roads in the world. I do not know what makes it more dangerous than Trollstigen in Norway, for example. To me it looked like a normal serpentine road. But it is certainly beautiful.

We passed some World War II bunker.

We went inside.

It felt a bit creepy in there, Sveta was afraid to go farther, and I decided not to push it either.

We drove up to the highest point of that road, 2802 m.

And then we walked up to 2862 m.

We lost a lot of time on that road because it was too beautiful and we had to keep stopping. As we approached the coast, I checked hotel options and found a good one for 61 EUR. It was not close to the sea, but the view from our window was beautiful: