Campsites,Switzerland #4of4

We drove along the lake and found the campsite just west of Lausanne, on Lac Leman (Lake Geneva). In addition to the campsites, there are public beaches and picnic areas for a distance in each direction, and they were also crowded. I talked to a Dutch family camped nearby. Each year they hook up the trailer and drive like mad to Lake Geneva, sit for a month, then drive like mad to get home. Why all month, why each year, and why not at some of the other beautiful places?

The main road to the Faido campsite was rough, twisty, switch-back and steep. Then we got to the bad road, one that didn’t have any guard rails, but for a very good reason, there wasn’t room for them. Don’t know what they do if someone meets another vehicle. The campsite was OK, and the view was fine, but the road was bad. A storm washed out the road, and the government said if they don’t like it, fix it or move.

The map showed a town right off the freeway, with a campground, but it was closed. A campsite, in Leysin, appeared on the map to be about five or six km away, on a short straight road. But we had to drive 16 km up, up, and up some more, with turns so sharp and steep it was difficult to drive, except the road surface itself was very good. Finally we found ourselves in the town of Leysin (a very large winter resort) after a drive beyond our imagination. Our mistake? The five km straight line to Leysin on the map was for the cog-railway, but we had to drive the regular road.

Went looking for a campsite near Zurich. The first one that was supposed to be open, wasn’t. The second one was almost impossible to get to, but we could see many parked trailers. When we got near the campsite, two people said, “It’s open, come on in.” Just as we entered, the owner came and said it not only wasn’t open, no heavy vehicles are ever permitted here as the ground, right next to the lake, is always too wet and soft. He was right, the wheels were spinning. We jacked the RV up, placed boards under the wheels, and got out OK.

We crossed the Italy/Swiss Border at 4:00 PM. There were a lot of flowers in Italy, there were even more in this part of Switzerland. It rained hard and noisily during the night at the Zernez campsite, but the next morning there were beautiful purple flowers and streams and waterfalls all over the place.