Another yummy breakfast at our hotel. 3 and 10 minute boiled eggs, cereal, fruit salad, yoghurt, bread with many different jams, croissants and today a special type of Madeira cake too. Mmmmmm mmmm, we could get used to this.

After our breakfast feast we jumped in our trusty hire car and off we went to the Aigle castle for a squiz .

Dodgy GPS tried to route us through someone's private driveway on the way to the castle. It's been a bit off with its directions the last couple of days actually. Maybe it's getting worn out too?

Aigle castle, while very striking from the outside as it's surrounded by rows of vines leading up to its position on a hill, is IMHO, not overly interesting inside. A lot of the rooms are dedicated to the history of wine (not particularly riveting unless you're a sommelier) and the turret windows are covered in perspex making photos of the view difficult.

Most amusing thing at the castle was the bawdy bottle labels they've had down the years. We're talking tits, ass and muff cartoons!  Because we all know nothing says "I'm a classy wine" like a muff-o-gram!
 
After our quick look around the castle we headed off to the Bex village and had hot dogs for lunch at a local beer festival. Nice sitting outside in the not too hot sun while locals enjoyed their beer .

Next stop - off for a tour of the Bex Mines de Sel, a really old salt mine that still produces salt today and has over 150 miners employed.

The tour started with a short walk into the mine entrance and through a few caverns which previously were a reservoir used for leaching salt out of the rock.

After an audio video presentation our group proceeded to the train. Now when I say train, that's kinda like calling my Mini a Chevrolet truck. This thing was a tiny wee matchbox car of a train only just big enough to squeeze into while still being small enough to fit through the tunnel.

Our toy train tootled along at a decent clip roughly 1.6 km into the mountain. Where we got off the train was 450m below ground. That's a lot of rock above your head!

Naturally the tour was in French but now and again the guide would speak in English a little for us . Sort of a 95% French / 5% English ratio. So wish I understood another language (and in particular French would be quite useful right about now).

The guide was a bit of a character actually. At one stage she was portraying a rooster strutting around and saying that was like at the end of a love film. Okaaaay. Didn't really follow a lot of what she said but she certainly had a lot of personality.

There's still a lot of salt crystalising on the rock in the mine. In places the salt even crystalises directly out of the air! There's also a wine cave where local wine producers can cellar their vintage so that it can "mature in silence". Hmmm didn't know wine was noise sensitive. They also claim the salt in the air ads a unique bouquet to their premium wine. Double hmmmm, at only Euro 18 per bottle we're thinking it's not that great actually!

Seeing we still had several hours of sunlight left and the day was lovely and sunny, we decided to take a trip over to Chamonix . When we visited in 2008 it rained a fair bit so we were quite keen to see it in sunshine.

Border control was the usual unmanned station in the middle of the road. Au revoir Switzerland, Bonjour France!  Bev had her passport all ready and looked slightly disappointed that there wasn't even someone to wave us through.

A very steep passage up the side of the hill through vineyards and then forest on the way to Chamonix. (Climbing up the mountain from Martigny put the wind up Bev, no matter what she says!)

Driving, driving and we saw a guy next to his motorbike taking a whiz by the side of the road - as you do! At least he was mostly clothed, unlike the female verge pee-er we saw outside of Vienna.  We're definitely in Europe now!

We reached Chamonix, found the hotel we stayed in last time and scored free parking near there. That was good as then we were a bit more orientated as to where we had to go .

Lovely walking around Chamonix in the sun! Lots more places open and more people about too - but not so many that it felt like Chamonix-vegas. Really nice atmosphere.

Unfortunately though, after not too long Chamonix recognised us and started to rain. Drat. Left us no choice (no, no choice at all) but to take shelter in a shop selling chocolate and cakes. Oh what a hardship!  Would have been rude if we didn't patronise the store, so we bought yummy cakes for cheap, cheap EUR 3.90 each.

By this time Chamonix was well and truly over its amnesia and it started to bucket down.  Ah yes, that's more like the Chamonix we remember.

Took refuge in an Italian restaurant for dinner. Lasagne & salad for Jeff, green salad and Tagliatelle for me and Bev tried a goats cheese salad. Euro prices so nice and so was the food.

Still raining and getting late so we sent Jeff off to get the car (which didn't really work as a drowned rat teenager conned him into giving him a lift home, and then he couldn't come near enough to where we were anyway) then set off on our 2hr drive back to Montreux.

Driving the mountain pass in the dark through a thunderstorm was an umm "interesting" experience! The road markings are in white paint but they don't seem to use the reflective elements like we do in Australia - and no lights along the road either, not even when we got back on the motorway. Jeff got us all back in one piece though. Good job Jeffrey!

Back to the hotel just before 11pm. Zzzzzzzzz