Dual Horizons

What an incredible first couple of weeks, day one and we say our farewell to family and our dog Sofia who will be lovingly looked after by Aurelie's mum during our time away. We begin to hitch hike from Paris and by the evening we receive wonderful lifts and arrive 500km away in Geneva, Switzerland! We find a beautiful place to sleep just next to the airport.

The next day we begin by hitchhiking again and make it to a place called Lutry. There we meet a fellow traveller called Axel who we immediately have a connection with and he invites us to stay with him in a beautiful abandoned chalet by the lake, we happily accept.
Axel is a beautiful young french pilgrim with his heart in exactly the right place and he is walking the 'Via Francigena'  from Lille in France to Rome, 1800km's!
Before we know it we have joined Axel on his walk and agree to walk to the Italian border with him. We receive many gifts including wine, bread and Swiss chocolate! along our way we hear of a Tibetan monastery in a place called Mont Pelerin nearby. We make our way there and are welcomed graciously and given food and a place to sleep for the night as well good company and a chance to explore the beautiful temple. The next day after a morning meditation and a farewell to the monk's we head back down the hill and make our way to the lake again and continue our mini pilgramage. The first couple of days proove to be a real physical test and I have some shoulder pain but after some adjustments with the bag and some more strength it becomes a pleasure once more. along our way we encounter various beautiful landscapes always backed by the mountains which became larger with every kilometre we took. We are surprised to see a couple of snakes on the route and given a treat by nature in the form of wild strawberries. After more than 100km walking for 7 days we arrive at or destination of col du gt st bernard on the italian border at around 2500m altitude. A mesmerising snow capped landscape and an apt place for us to end our walk.  We are very kindly given food and accommodation at the monastery and spend a great last evening with axel before he continues tomorrow into Italy and on to Rome. Enjoy my friend and we know you'll receive many gifts along the way!
Thanks to this experience we have both decided that walking for longer periods is something we'd like to incorporate into our journey as it allows you to feel the environment more intimately and is a nice break from being on the road and feels more natural and of course more independent too.
The last few days have been spent hitchhiking east through the mountains of Switzerland with temps of up to 38'c! Merci Suzanne pour ces delicieux moments partages a Nax ainsi que pour les bains aux lacs. Vive la suisse!
We've now arrived in innsbruck in Austria and are couchsurfing with a lovely guy called alex who saw us wandering the streets and invited us to stay at his place. From here we continue heading east until we reach Bulgaria where we look for some land to purchase starting a whole new exciting chapter to our lives!