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After spending a week in L'Argentière-la-Bessée playing with water, canyons and mountains James and I departed for pastures new.

I thought Via Ferrata and capsizing a kayak was scary, but nothing could have prepared me for the journey over the Alps! We had rain on Saturday and Sunday - lots of it - and it was still hammering down when we set off. We told Ol` Unreliable (the sat nav) where we wanted to go and to avoid the toll roads and what not and boy did it pick us a peach of a route.

I am sure that the road it picked to clear the Alps would have, under normal circumstances, been a slow and pleasant ascent offering undeniable beautiful views of what lay below. However, due to the rain we were treated to driving through thick cloud that reduced visibility to a matter of feet and of course the French had neglected to add any safety barriers on this narrow, windy mountain pass! Oh dear.

I guess it comes as no surprise that we survived the intrepid journey and I bet you have no idea where we have ended up (hint: look at the post title)...

So we have been staying with a friend that I met whilst globetrotting last year in Australia and treated to all the touristy delights the beautiful city of Neuchâtel. So what does a tourist in Switzerland get up to? Well we have wandered around the entirety of the city centre (Neuchâtel is a pretty small place, to be fair), visited a watch museum, toured and sampled all the chocolate we could get our mitts on in the Cailler factory and lots more.

I guess by now it is also needless to say that whilst being here I have done something that has truly terrified me too. This time it was in the form of a tree top walk. Now that sounds nice and easy, "walk", but this was far from that! Think via ferrata in the trees, 10-20m up in the air. Did I mention that I really don`t like heights? No matter, it is great fun!

Also in Neuchâtel this week is their annual Buskers Festival which has been absolutely superb! Fantastic and interesting music of all genres being performed live on the streets in the evenings by a whole host of talented folk. Most enthralling of all though had to be the jam session last night. This seemed to have at least one member from every act joining in on their preferred instrument - be that a banjo, drum, shaker, microphone, bass guitar or who knows what else! Quite extraordinary to say the least.

Sadly lack of laptop battery is cutting this post short so I guess I best tell you where we are heading next in case I do not get the chance over the next few days... First stop is a brief stop in a "real Swiss chalet" courtesy once again of our lovely hosts followed by more river based fun in the form of the Ardeche river.

Ciao,
George