World Cup Road Trip World Cup 2006 – The Road Trip – Barcelona to Berlin

1232 kms

So Rooney’s foot is OK ! Hallelujah, the World Cup is already won. Lets just get past the group stage and then see where we stand.

Switzerland, land of mountains, lakes and traffic jams. Arrived in Zurich last night, after travelling for most of the day through the Alps. It was a long journey, only about 300km, but 5 hours solid driving. I bid farewell to Chamonix, and a short while later to France. I was half expecting to get stopped at the border, after all I’m an English guy driving a German made car with Spanish plates from France into Switzerland whilst listening to Irish music, but no, they just waved me through without a second glance. Europe today, eh !

Climbed to the 1526m La Forclaz pass before dropping down to Martigny, and heading northwest into Valais and the Rhone valley. Was a bit of a throwback to the old ‘Ski Sunday’ days, passing all the signposts for classic resorts – Verbier, Crans Montana, Saas Fee and Zermatt under the shadow of the Matterhorn. I couldn’t see the Matterhorn from the valley floor, but it was up there somewhere ! Then after a short stop in Brig I started to climb up again, alongside the Rhone. Then, after almost taking the wrong pass, luckily some swiss dude i asked new that the road beyond was closed, i headed up to the Grimsel Pass. It was pretty steep and curvy, but was a lot shorter than I’d expected, in ten minutes I was at the top (2165m). Bronny handled it real well. There was a lot of snow there, think they’d had a fresh snowfall last week. The long winding road down was stunning, with the Finestraarhorn peak rising high off to the west, passing lakes and dams and cows with bells (classic Heidi country this!). Then it was up and down over the foothills until I hit Luzern and the traffic jam to Zurich. The last 20km took me about an hour, it didn’t help that I had to right through the centre at rush hour.

Anyway am staying at a friends place (thanks Stef & Stef!) right near the lakeside here in Zurich. It’s a very pretty and quiet (at least compared to Barcelona) city. Am gonna go and take a look round in a bit.

The weather’s been fantastic during the Alpine crossing, three days of sunshine and blue skies. Considering people have told me it’s been raining and snowing non stop for virtually the last weeks, I’ve lucked out !

So this afternoon I’ll be heading to Munich, ready for the big kick off tomorrow. It’s funny, normally this close to a World Cup I’d have been up to date on all the latest team news, gossip, all the merry go round, but this time round I’m totally of the pace ‘cos have been in the car or up a mountain, rather than reading all the papers or the web sites. I mean I haven’t even seen a World Cup supplement yet. The day before it all kicks off !! And I didn’t even know the result of Rooney’s foot scan until 5 minutes ago ! Hopefully I’ll get hold of an English paper today and catch up with all the la-di-da.

Oh yeah, the Swiss seem pretty up for the world cup, they just want to enjoy it, no pretences of winning the thing, but with a quiet confidence that the team will do well. I’ve actually got a bet on them to win there group ahead of the French. Hopp Schweiz !