Summary
Paris was still gray and rainy as we were taxied away from our hotel towards the Gare de Lyon. We’re off to catch a TGV to our next destination, the beautiful little town of Annecy. The train ride was gorgeous and the train itself very new and nice. A long afternoon walk reminded us why we like Annecy with its situation on a large lake looking at the mountains. Dinner was in the old town at Le Chalet, a restaurant specializing in Savoyarde specialties. We opted for Raclette cheese with charcuterie and ate way too much.
Details
This morning we’re on a bit of a tight schedule. We have a train taking us to Annecy, at the foot of the Alps. To get to that, due to the rain, we have a taxi picking us up, arranged by the hotel (we hope). We bathe, dress and pack. Downstairs we have our last breakfast here. They’re good but getting old. What’s the saying? Eat to live, don’t live to eat. Whatevs.
As we’re gathering our luggage to head out, Karen notices something odd about our room. It’s in kind of a U shape. “What is our room curled around?” she asks. Ah, the elevator. Our room shares three walls with the elevator. Wow, we never hear a thing! Bravo to whatever company made that possible!
Our taxi is here on time, early actually. We’re checking out and paying our bill. Our hotel desk person is the one seemingly from the deep south (of France). Every French word he says sounds like it ends in NG, hard to easily understand. Meanwhile our taxi driver is hauling our luggage out to the trunk.
It is raining and as such the traffic is worse than usual. Lots of people taking taxis and Ubers, and lots of drivers in their cars trying to pick up soggy fares. That plus the rain itself slows down everything. We’ll be fine. The taxi driver has arranged to pick up another couple as we’re getting out of the Tesla. Good day for this guy.
The track for our train is finally posted and we head that way, with a trainload of others. I have both tickets in my Apple Wallet on my iPhone. I scan Karen’s ticket and she goes through. I scan my ticket and it says “Invalid, already been used!” Yikes. I try both tickets again and get the same result.
I call to the train lady on the other side of the automated gate. She has me try both again and then, with an exasperated sigh, goes through the somewhat cumbersome process of opening the gate. Assuming I’d pulled a fast one, and gotten three people through on two tickets, it’d be picked up when the conductor came through and looked at everyone’s tickets. We’re fine.
We hoist our luggage to the storage at the end of the car. The guy next to me asks if I’m OK to slide my bag to one side so he can put his luggage where mine is. He has a coiled bike lock and wants to lock his luggage to something. Smart. He must have some valuable stuff in there.
Our seats are comfortable and we pull down the tray table to expose all kinds of things to make our trip more enjoyable: a rack to store our papers or laptop, USB and a/c power, a cup holder, and a makeup mirror, thankfully with a door to close it. You don’t want a pair of eyes staring at you the whole trip, even if they are your own. I glance around and see that they’re all closed. I re-close mine.
Because of where we’re going it’s a long train ride, three and a half hours. We’re not making very many interim stops, but once we get up into the foothills of the Alps the train will be going slower. We do a lot of snaking back and forth. As they announce the interim stops I’m struck by how many of the connections are to busses. Multi-modal I think it’s called. The last stop before Annecy looks interesting: Aix-les-Bains. It’s known for its thermal baths. Maybe we should come back and soak!
In Annecy it’s not raining, yay! We walk the short distance to our hotel, Hébé. It’s only two but our room is ready, another yay! We unpack and check out the good sized balcony. Our view is of a sort-of busy street, but we have blue skies and a place to sit and set down our wineglasses, we figure.
Two blocks away we duck into the Hertz office and pick up our car. We’ll be dropping it in Grenoble, 53 miles away. We may use it to go further up into the Alps or go see some thermal baths, who knows. Our car is a Puma (not a Kuga like before). Smaller and (sigh) manual. It’ll do.
Business done we head downtown, a few blocks away, it’s pretty and even just getting there is good looking. This is a nice town where they care about quality of life for everyone. The weather here is nice a lot of the year and the plants reflect it.
At dinner time we head out to where Karen’s made a reservation for dinner: Le Chalet. We’ll be having some sort of melted cheese, we’re sure. It’s a popular spot and has been here forever. Inside it does look like you’re in a big alpine lodge. There’s lots of seating in the open, airy restaurant. Sadly our table is upstairs with its low ceilings. We’re tucked in next to another couple (French) and soon we have another on our other side.
We order Raclette (melted cheese) with different kinds of dried meats and salamis. It comes with bread and three large baked potatoes and gerkins (pickles). Our young, efficient server brings ‘the machine’ (for melting the cheese, gets it set up, plugs it in, and then installs the wedge of cheese. It’s not easy and we think it’s too low (you can’t put the metal cups underneath the cheese to catch the oozing goodness). The heat is already on so I don’t think it’d be possible to reposition it. Karen’s dismayed that I won’t stand up to Madame Fromage.
We make it work, and never touch our bare skin to the bright orange heating elements, thank goodness. How is it? It’s OK and expensive.
It’s raining again, on our long walk home. We only brought one umbrella so we hold each other tightly and try to behave as a single human. Back at the room Karen’s dismayed to find she doesn’t have her favorite scarf of many years. Oh well, we have our mission for tomorrow.
Photos
