By this time we’d driven through the Mont Blanc Tunnel )right through Mont Blanc) from France into Italy, through the corner of Italy and up, up, up an increasingly steep and narrow and dodgy road to the pass into Switzerland, the Col de St Bernard. This is where the St Bernard dogs originated from the St Bernard monastery next to the Col.

Sadly, on the top of the Col, there were a few stalls with tacky guide dogs for sale which would have brought some money for the local economy, but I DID manage to pursuade the young border guards to stamp my passport with a fancy stamp – bit of an ask because they normally don’t stamp passports these days. Elly hung back to see the reception I got, and when she saw that I got my stamp she asked for one too:-)

It was interesting that the road up to the Col (and therefore in Italy) was in dreadful repair but had a fantastic guard rail, whereas the road down from the Col on the other side (and therefore in Switzerland) was a fantastic repair but had NO guardrail to guard against falling over the VERY steep drops off the edges.