It was a very cold night at our parking place near Brig in the Rhone Valley. Before turning the heating on in our camper van this morning it was 0 degrees C inside the vehicle! You know what they say about red sky in the morning! It was time to move on.

We followed the Rhone Valley west to Martigny. All the time the sky was becoming darker and more threatening. This is a major wine producing area with vines growing on every possible ledge on the south facing side of the valley.

At Martigny the Rhone Valley turns northwards and flows into Lake Geneva near to the town of Montreaux. We stopped by this lakeside castle for a cup of tea. Snow flakes were starting to fall.

 
We followed the lake shore until we reached the city of Lausanne when  we turned northwards and crossed the border of Switzerland into France. By this time it was snowing very heavily but the roads had been cleared and we were able to make good progress through the Jura hills at altitudes of up to 1100 metres.

After what seemed a very long journey the road finally started going down hill and when we reached the City of Besancon which is at about 200 metres above sea level the snow turned to rain. We were very pleased in retrospect that we had pressed on yesterday and crossed the main chain of the Alps at the Simplon Pass as it would almost certainly have been impossible to cross if we had waited till today.

We are parked tonight in the aire at Besancon.

(In the unlikely event that we have any new readers - an aire is a dedicated parking area for camper vans which has facilities for taking on fresh water and disposing of waste water and sewage. Sometimes they have mains electricity supply. They are usually free to use but sometimes - particularly by the coast or in big cities - a small charge is levied.)