Tuesday, 29 August. By the time we ate breakfast, got everything packed and in the car, and got on our way, it was almost 11:00. We drove south on the "autoroute," France's only superhighway, for its full 25-mile length, then headed southwest through Dijon.
It was a terribly hot day for driving and the old Pontiac had no air conditioning. We stopped at a little village for lunch and had trouble with the language when Sharon wanted a sandwich. I remembered the words for "meat" and "bread," and we got the meat with no problem. But the owner could not understand my pronunciation of
"pain" (bread). Finally, a multilingual German tourist helped us out. We stopped for the night in Morez, a small town in the French alps about 30 miles before Geneva. We took a walk around the town, bought a couple bottles of French wine to take home, had dinner at the hotel, and went to bed.
Wednesday, 30 August. As we crossed into Switzerland and drove into Geneva, we decided that we'd all had our fill of sightseeing for the trip and would spend our time in Geneva shopping. We looked at jewelry and toy shops primarily. We bought some toys for the boys, and Sharon bought a lovely silver bracelet watch for her mother. (They took the watch to the back room to wrap it, but the box was empty when Sharon finally gave it to her mother on Christmas Eve. So much for the legendary Swiss honesty.)
We had lunch in Geneva and then left the city, driving down the south shore of Lake Geneva. We briefly crossed back into France and back into Switzerland again, still without a trittico. The scenery was beautiful along the lake and beyond it, too.
We stopped for the night in Martigny, well up into the Alps. Even though the temperature was quite cool, Sharon wore a spaghetti-strap dress and refused to put on a jacket or sweater. We took a brief walk around town but it was pretty dead, so we called it a night.
Thursday, 31 August. We continued our drive through Switzerland and continued to be impressed by the beautiful scenery. The terraced vineyards all the way up the sides of the mountains were especially picturesque. We drove over the Simplon Pass which, although partly unpaved, was a beautiful drive with very little traffic.
We came down into Italy near Domodossola and for the first time had a little trouble at the border because of a combination of the lack of our trittico and the ignorance of the Italian border guards. They insisted that we were Belgians because of the red and white SETAF license plate. I explained about SETAF, NATO, and all, and they said they understood. But they still marked our customs document with "B" for Belgium. The guard also insisted our gas coupons were no good, since he had never seen that kind before. Fortunately, the attendant at the next Esso gas station was better informed.
When we got to Stresa on Lake Maggiore, we stopped for lunch along the shore. The lake shore was beautifully landscaped with palm trees and semitropical plants. After we had driven ten miles from Stresa, Sharon noticed she had left her expensive sun glasses at the restaurant. We drove back to look for them, but they were gone.
We arrived in Verona in mid afternoon and were very happy to be back. We had driven 1936 miles on the trip.
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