Switzerland to Nice to Florence

Hello again! I'm still here in Rome, but trying to catch up! Ok, so I am taking the step to declare Switzerland as the most beautiful country on earth. It is incredible. We rolled in on the top deck bus at about 7.30pm after a really long day of travel. Driving through the little towns in Switzerland I kep thoping that the bus would stop and that we'd be staying in that town, but then the bus would go on to the next little town which was even prettier than the last. We satyed in a place called Lauterbrunnen, you should put it through Google and see a picture. It is a litle village no bigger that Research, where I grew up, nestled between these two huge mountains that have cliff faces for sides! We were staying at a campground that Top Deck use all through summer. They have a big Top Deck kitchen tent and staff members who live and work there cooking the meals. Claudia was very excited to see a girl called Jane who works at the campground. Claudia told us about how Jane always uses the word "clearly", which clearly, she did. From then on the whole bus used the word clearly in every sentence we could.
Clearly Jane, had made us an awesome meal called Edelweiss chicken that had me at least singing Sound of Music. It was a lot like beef stroganoff but with chicken. Yum yum yum. The campsite had it's own little bar that had thousands of coasters hanging from the roof, people had come in, written on them and tied them up, so it was fun reading them all. We had a quiet night in the bar but it went pretty late anyway! Me and Jus got the hot coal treatment for being teachers, and unfortunately I haven't learned to back down from this argument yet. So had a bit of a debate with a few people about that and I think we won.
The next morning Justine (always full of surprises) took herself off skydiving!!! We knew skydiving was an optional extra when we booked the tour but we had both said, 'as if!', but the day before Claudia had shown a video of the last group she had skydiving, which did make it look really good. After the video she looked at me with a horrified look and said 'I think I'm going to do it'. So the next morning a group of us were in town watching as the helicopter came over and we watched and could see these tiny little flecks leave the plane and then after a minute the parachutes would open. I was freaking out watching it from the ground, I was so glad I wasn't doing it!!
At 10.30 we jumped on a little train with some of the skydivers and made our way up the 4000m of Jungfrau Mountain. The train ride took 2 hours but it was so beautiful, the secenery was amazing. Passed lots of cows and goats too. When we got up there we had a look at the summit (I got pooed on by a bird), saw the Ice Palace which was just some ice sculptures, met a few huskies and copped a snowball in the face from Damo, got a great photo of him throwing it at me though.
On the way back down we met all these retired couples from England doing a tour of Switzerland. They were lovely and chatty and wanted to hear about everything we'd been doing. Three of the ladies fell in love with Damo and clucked all over him until he fell asleep which they loved even more.
After dinner that night we all headed out to the only other little bar in Lauterbrunnen called Horner Bar. I think I've said this before but our tour was part of a big 24 day tour that we drop off in Rome, but it keeps through Austria, Prague and eventually to Berlin. Anyway, there is a song called 'Paris to Berlin', I don't know who it's by but it's a bit of a dance song and when we were in Paris Claudia nominated it as our Tour Song, and gave us actions too. So of course, everytime we went out we requested this song and sure enough it was played in Lauterbrunnen and we all jumped on the dance floor and did our group actions, must looked very funny to anyone not in our group.
Another thing we had going on the tour was a medal that was passed around to whoever had done the most recent dumb thing. Everyone who had to wear it also had to add something to it. I earned the medal that night by somehow getting mixed and thinking it was Renee's birthday when it was actually Jackie's birthday and singing happy birthday to Renee very enthusiastically when everyone else was singing it to Jackie. Luckily I got it then, now the medal has so much stuff attatched to it, including a cow bell.
The next day was another travel day to get to Nice in the French Riviera. Rikki had somehow acquired a giant zucchini from somewhere during the night and it was now sitting pride of place at the front of the bus. It freaked me out a bit, we had a giant zuchini in our a fridge a few years ago, I don't remember where it came from, but everytime I opened the fridge I'd forget it was there and it would scare me. Everyone was zonked from a big night and fell alseep everywhere. We had people in the aisle asleep and I set myself up on the floor under the seat so Jus was on the seat and I was underneath like little mini bunk beds! Not the most comfy, but it feels so much better just having your head down!
We had a picnic lunch stop in Italy where it was really hot. We were all distressed because we were all rugged up in our Switzerland clothes and it was the hottest a lot of us had been in months! But the food we had for lunch was awesome. I filled up a plastic cup with potato salad and kept eating back on the bus.
We drove into Nice along the beach, passing the airport with about 50 private jets. The beach was incredible! So pretty! Got into our hotel rooms, shared with Jackie and Renee. From there the whole group went our for dinner together. This was a meal that had already been organised for us by Top Deck, so the restaurant was expecting us! From there we all headed over to a place called Wayne's Bar which I think is a place lots of tour take their people to. There were two buses of Contiki tours there too, so we kind of felt like it was Top Deck vs Contiki in who can dance better on the tables. Walked home via the beach which was all lit up still.
The next day was a free day and me and Jus and Renee decided to have a bit of a sleep in. Around midday we walked up to the beach for some Vitamin D infusions. The beach is a pebble beach and the water is the most beautiful blue colour, but jeez it was violent. It just went down into the water really steeply and the water just sucked back so strong and then absolutely pounded back in. Walking along before we found a spot we saw so many people getting thrown around like they were in a washing machine. It was pretty funny. You'd see all this white water and arms and legs spinning around in it. There was no way I was getting in there so I set myself up with my book, but Renee and Jus thought they'd give it a go. I was looking at them standing there on the edge, I looked down at my book for a second, looked back about and Renee had totally disappeared and Jus was running back to the safety of her towel. Renee had had been sucked in and spat out by the water. She took on the ocean and the ocean won. Another guy on our tour, Regan, came down later and got in OK but got beaten up on the way out. Then later Andy from our tour showed all his cuts and bruises he'd got. He was lucky too, because his head had got whacked against all the rocks. I think I made the right decision not swimming!!
That night we all bothered to have a shower and put on some clean clothes because we were going to the Grand Casino in Monaco! I didn't know Monaco was a country until we were on our way and was quite pleased to cross another one of the list. Claudia gave us heaps of info about Monaco, which was all interesting. It was very cashed up, you could tell just by looking at the Marina with all the luxury yachts tied up. It wasn't as pretty as I thought it would be though, I would have rather lived in Switzerland. I wonder if people live there just for the prestige of saying they live in Monaco. Seriously, better places in the world. Onto the Grand Casino, played the pokies next to a lady who had each foot straddling eith side of the pokie machine with a champagne in one hand and a cigartte in the other. Very classy, she reminded me on Patty and Selma from the Simpsons. We had a bit of a lesson in roulette, just watching though, and saw an aussie girl win about 100 euros. She was stoked, we were very happy for her. Then me and Jus went outside to a cafe with Claudia and Pauly our bus driver and paid 12 euro for a milkshake!! But it was awesome and after a night at the casino I was only down 22 euros, so I thought that was pretty good!!
The next day we got up and drove back along the coast (same road where Grace Kelly died) and stopped for a visit to Fragonard's Perfumery. Their perfumes had such beautiful packaging I wanted to buy it just for that, but I restrained myself and promised myself that the money I didn't spend there I could spend in duty free on the way home.
Our next stop was the Leaning Tower of Pisa! It seriously looks exactly like it does on postcards. I think we were all surprisingly underwhelmed. We all took our tourist photos and got back on the bus!
Slept a lot of the way to Florence on the bus and woke up when everyone was getting off. We were staying at another campsite called Girasole resort. This one was fully equipped, bars, restaurants, pool, we could have stayed within the campsite for a week and had an awesome time. Me and Jus jumped off the bus and ran straight to the pool for a quick swim before it was closed for the night. That night we all had another group dinner together at the restaurant, fabulous Italian three course meal, pasta, pizza, gelato. From there we went over to the bistro where there was what I thought a karaoke machine set up with a man singing along, excpet the same man stayed on the whole night and I realised he was actually the hired entertainment. He was actually quite entertaining. The girls from our tour started our own dance floor and started draggin the boys into dance. Lots and lots of fun. At 11 o'clock we all conga-lined out of the bistro and down the nightclub. We were all stoked because the night club was so well taken care of that we could dance barefoot, no broken glass or spills or anything. Had a great night dancing, From Paris To Berlin was played of course! Headed to bed late.
So now Im only a few days behind, but off to float in the Adriatic tomorrow so will get behind again! Ciao!