Ambling Adventures

Day Fourteen : Gruyère – Much More Than Just Cheese Leaving the La Fouly mountain campsite, our journey to Lausanne took us via the picturesque medieval town of Gruyère, located in the Fribourg canton of Switzerland. Known worldwide for its cheese of the same name, Gruyère offers a rich historical and cultural experience.Upon arrival, we were welcomed by cobbled streets lined with ancient buildings, many of which have been converted into boutique shops, restaurants, and small hotels. The town is dominated by the impressive 13th-century Gruyères Castle, perched on top of a hill, offering breathtaking views of the surrounding rolling green hills and valleys.Taken from the PDF version Our visit…

Day Eleven : Camping Des Glacier via Zermatt. We began our eleventh day of our Swiss adventure at Camping Jungfrau, leaving early as we had day trip planned, a 2hr 30mins drive to Tasch, where we were to catch a train to the car-free town of Zermatt. On the route, the train we boarded at Kandersteg station was a first for us, as it was an open carriage car train that took us through the mountains via the Lötschbergtunnel. It was a mesmerizing experience, with our vehicle lights turned off in the tunnel and the white and red emergency lights flying past. We soon arrived at Tasch’s multistory car park…

Day Eight: Gotthard Tunnel & Sustenpass Detour! After the relative bustle of Lugano, we were eager to return to the great outdoors. From Lugano Lake, our destination was the captivating Camping Jungfrau in Lauterbrunnen. The route we planned involved taking the main roads for most of our drive, with a detour over Sustenpass, another mountain pass. The road north led us through the legendary Gotthard Road Tunnel. An impressive 17 kilometres long, it’s one of the world’s longest road tunnels and provides a direct route between the Swiss cantons of Uri and Ticino. The experience inside the tunnel was intense, with the temperature rising to a high of 39c and…

The most direct route to our next adventure, Lake Lugano Camping, would have taken us around 3.5 hours on the main roads. Instead, we chose a more scenic, winding path via the village of Meiringen and over the towering 2429m high Furkapass. We left Manor Farm campsite early to enjoy breakfast in Meiringen, a quaint town nestled between two steep mountainsides. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast of croissants and coffee at the Frutal Versandbäckerei AG, a bakery on Bahnhofstrasse. (Amazing cheese flans also!) After refuelling, we strolled through the village to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Meiringen seems a peculiar place to find a museum dedicated to the famous English detective,…

Manor Farm Camping lies in the heart of Switzerland, nestled near the picturesque city of Interlaken and perched on the shore of Lake Thun. Our journey to this dreamy campsite was marked with anticipation and excitement, and it did not disappoint. This is a tale of our adventure, from the moment we arrived at Manor Farm to our exploration of the surrounding areas. We arrived in Manor Farm, Interlaken around 1 pm with a bag full of local wine and food from a visit to the local supermarket. The check-in process at Manor Farm was a little different than what we were used to. After walking the site to find…

Day One: Setting Off From Hampshire As we set off from Hampshire in early June 2023, our destination, Interlaken Switzerland, was over 700 miles away. The plan for our first day was pretty straightforward: drive to Folkstone, board the Le Shuttle, and then drive as far as we felt comfortable from Calais thru France. Then, when we felt like it, we’d stop at one of the 3 or 4 Aires I had researched in advance, depending on how the drive progressed. We arrived early at Folkstone, so early that we were offered an earlier train for no additional cost. After a quick visit to the terminal shops and admiration of…

Welcome to the blog version of our travel diary/guide to Switzerland; the full 96-page PDF version is also available, where we go into more detail about all the places we visited, the drives, and the campsites.   We are Marcus & Louise, and we have been making ambling adventures in campervans across the UK for several years. Our journey began with Flossy, a hired Pink VW T2 van that sold us on the campervan lifestyle. We then purchased Bellamy, our (t)rusty 36-year-old VW T3, with whom we enjoyed five years of exploring the UK, and continue now with Amberly, our orange Ford Nugget. Our passions lie in exploring new destinations…