Day 5 is again a travelling day. We checked out from the hotel before 8 am and to my pleasant surprise, the gentleman at the front desk is a muslim from Tunisia. A bit too late, he informed me that there is only one halal food outlet in Chamonix which is a Kebab/Pizza house near the main cable car station. We had in fact seen it but because there was no halal sign and we were driving, we discounted it.
Anyhow, we left Chamonix and straight-away made our way to the 11.6 km Mont Blanc tunnel. It’s a vehicular tunnel right underneath the mighty Mont Blanc and also serves as the passage from France to Italy. We paid EUR42.10 for a return trip (valid for return within 7 days) and a single trip costs around EUR33. No passport/immigration check – in fact so far having crossed UK to France to Switzerland, back to France and now Italy, we only have had to produce our passport at the EuroTunnel crossing before leaving the UK into France. At all the other entry point, there was no immigration check at all.
Courmayeur is a scenic little town (seems to be bigger than Chamonix though to us) and like Chamonix, highly leverage its location and proximity to Monte Bianco in attracting tourists. It also has series of cable cars that are connected to the ones from Chamonix though we have had enough of cable cars and were not even slightly tempted to take another one.
From Courmayeur, we crossed the Mont Blanc tunnel again back to France and from there via Chamonix to our destination for the day – Lauterbrunnen which was only 184 km away. However, our Sat-Nav said that the journey would take 3.5 hours and we soon found out why. To our pleasant surprise again, the journey took us along the mountainous alpine roads which magnificent views along the way from mountains to lakes and valleys. Closer to Lauterbrunnen, we decided to stop by at Interlaken, as small town between 2 lakes (that’s where the name comes from) and our main mission there was to find halal food. This we successfully accomplished at Interlaken West where we found another Kebab place on the main street. The kebab was nice and the serving was generous; 5 kebabs, 2 drinks and 3 ice-creams cost CHF72 ~ EUR42.
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