Avignon to Sierre
We started early, having a scratch breakfast of the chocolate donuts and juice that I had bought in Barcelona before we left. We stopped for coffee and hot chocolate not far along our journey.

We drove mostly along the toll roads and made good progress north. We decided to have a lunch stop at Annecy and after some nightmares trying to find a park, we finally located a parking station and headed down for a quick look at the old city with its canals and island prison and the lake. The town was extremely congested as there was a triathlon taking place. We bought some sandwiches and headed down to the lake to eat them, only to find that we were cut off by the triathletes who were now on the bicycle leg. We were lucky that there was a subway under the road so that we could get back to our car and continue on our journey.
We drove through Chamonix-Mont Blanc and caught glimpses of the snowfields and glaciers as we continued on our route to Switzerland. Marie-Francoise and Roland were waiting for us when we arrived about 4pm. It was wonderful to see them again and we were soon on our way up to Serafino. Dinner was shared with Franz and Colette (Marie-Francoise’s parents) and Michel, and we enjoyed some great conversation (or attempts at it). Marie-Francoise and Michel had been at a Johnny Halliday concert in Geneva the night before and had only a few hours sleep, so they all departed about 9pm. Peter, Sam and I took a quick walk around the streets in the dying minutes of sunlight before returning to Serafino for bed.