We were up a bit earlier than usual this morning, at 7.30, had a quick breakfast in the dining hall and left at 8.25 for the two-mile journey to Lausanne station. We arrived at 8.45 which left us 37 minutes to dismantle our bikes and pack them into the bike bags, which we did on the platform. All went smoothly and we boarded the 09:22 TGV train for Paris with plenty of time to spare. And this time there were no problems with the tickets.

The train sped along at very high speeds, but it was still a long journey, getting us to Gare de Lyon by 13:24. As before it was hard working carting the bike bags and luggage to the RER D train, and then lugging them up to Gare du Nord overground station, but the advantage of doing that was that we at least had time to buy lunch using the last of our coins along with our card. We found a quiet corner of the busy station to eat it at around 2.45.

We thought we were in good time joining the Eurostar queue – until we realised we were in the wrong queue, for a later train than ours. We then had to rush and only just got on the 15:19 train before it left. This time we were able to sit together, so it was a more enjoyable journey than the one from London at the start of the tour.

Our train arrived at London Waterloo at 16:54 local time. We reassembled the bikes on the platform, got some good food from the station shops and once again only just caught the train, this time the 18:20 to Exeter. As previously it was the slow, stopping train, getting to Exeter at 21:51. Then we had to change for the 22:05 to Newton Abbot, finally arriving at 10:43.

It had been a very long day, and a very long tour, so it’s not surprising we were all tired out when we arrived home. But we had some very happy memories of our second ever tour to Switzerland, which surely must be one of the best countries in the world to go for a cycle tour.