Not quite Switzerland yet, first we need to stop in at Chamonix to visit one of Audrey's best friends, Cassandre.  No problem for me as Chamonix is one of those iconic places that is associated with the rich and famous so it would be nice to see what all the fuss is about.  Arriving late on Friday night it was all about Audrey and Cassandre catching up and chatting and cooking a BBQ while Thomas (Cassandre fella) and I just watched on.  The following day the 3 of them went shopping in a nearby city while I watched Adelaide just beat Brisbane on Eurosports 2 with French commentary.  I should have gone with them because that game was one of the worst that I've seen, regardless of the that fact I couldn't understand what the commentator was saying, it was clearly evident watching it.  But I digress ...
On the Sunday we did a tour of the Chamonix township.  The valley that the town is based in is really, really narrow with the surrounding peaks reaching up to over 4,000 m, the main one which towers over Chamonix is none other that Mont Blanc itself, Europe's highest mountain (that's if you don't include anything East of the old Soviet block, if you do, then it comes in 5th).  It obvious that the town reeks of money because all of the world's most famous and expensive brands are there but having said that, it is really pretty to wander through and just dream of what you could do in a place like this ... if you won the lotto.
Bidding farewell to Cassandre and Thomas, we took off to to visit another one of Audrey's friends (so far this trip has been about Audrey catching up with people !!), named Isabelle and her fiance Guilhem in the little town of Sierre.  Well I thought that Chamonix was expensive but it has nothing on this place, not just Sierre and the nearby Skiing Villages, but Switzerland itselfs.  I was very glad to be able to save a little money by crashing on the floor at Isabelle's place (thanks again for that by the way).  We spent 2 days there and filled up the time by going for drives around the place, first up to Crans-Montana, where people like Rowan Atkinson and Michael Schumaker once had Chalet's, then up to Saas Fee and Tasch, just to see what these Valleys hid.  Infact Tasch is last stop on the road to Zermatt before you HAVE to get the train the rest of the way.  We decided that we want to return to Switzerland one day (when the dollar is stronger) so we decided that it was prudent to keep our money now and just see things from the car.  This wasn't a hard thing to do, especially for someone from Adelaide, because the mountains here are spectacular and it didn't matter where you drove to, there was another pass that needed to crossed, or another valley that needed to be climbed.  Switzerland contains some of the best mountain roads in the world, several named in the World's best, and once we left Isabelle and Guilhem, we took off towards them, 2 in particular, The Grimsel Pass and the Susten Pass.  Audrey was the one to drive these passes which allowed me just to look around and gasp and relax in the passengers seat ... as much as one could with huge drop offs only metres away.
We drove until 18H00 and then tried to find a place to stay.  Note to self.  Plan ahead so that you don't get stuck paying $200 bucks just to sleep.
Today was just a leisurely drive through the rest of Switzerland, heading towards Milan in Italy where we plan to explore that fine city over the next few days.