Yesterday was mountains and snow, huge trees and deep gorges. Today was more about more placid rivers and lakes.
We were awake early, before the alarm, and at St Gervais Les Bain Le Fayet (lol) station at about 6
.30 for our 7.03 train. Funny how it doesn't take long when you know the way! The train was on time and it had a First Class section - a TER train. Traveled at a reasonable speed, but still good for looking at the scenery. It was a pity there was nothing at all open before we left to buy anything - but water is okay. When we got to Annecy, there was a train to Aix Les Bains due to leave - so we got on it (another TER) and arrived at 9.23. The next train to Geneva wasn't until 12.57.
We walked to the old town (took our wheelie bags) and had le petit dejeurner (see photo). We'd bypassed the more touristy places - they were more expensive too. We paid 5.70 Euro each for cafe au lait, juice, croissant & breadroll with jam. After breakfast we wandered down the Rue Geneva and then went through the Saturday markets - bought some cherries for the train. Ended up back at the station and it was only 11 o'clock. Decided I needed a loo - the ones at the station were locked
. Checked the tourist map for the public WCs and headed to the park. It was one of those tiny round cubicles that men & women both use - and you still have to put money in the slot to get the door open. No way! Couldn't find the other one that was on the map. So back to the touristy area that I'd previously shunned, for 2 expensive and not very nice coffees at 4.20 Euro each, at La Rotonde" bar. However it had beautifully clean toilets and free wifi. Then Bryan had a beer before heading back down the road to catch another TER train to Geneva.
The train traveled past Lake Du Bourget as we headed north to Geneva. The train seemed to follow a river that flowed south from Geneva - we saw weirs in a few places. Once again the water was very milky greeny - we figured it was glacial water with sediment from the rock. It was more gluggy looking after the quarry sites. I asked Bryan to google it for me and his note says "canals and Rhone River" - maybe I'd better have a look! I remember the photo he showed me of the greeny Arve river merging with the clear Rhone river near Geneva
. The colour is from silt apparently. The station at Geneva was nowhere near the lake, so rather than having a look around , we caught the next train heading in the right direction.
This was an ICN train - a bit like our tilt trains I guess. They certainly tilted on the corners. Nice big windows. We traveled north with Lake Geneva on our right. Lots of sailing boats and people swimming and sunbaking as it was a Saturday and very hot. We could see snow on the mountains on the other side. Then we went through farm land - a lot of corn, but lots of other crops as well. There were grapevines all over the place too. Crops are all mixed up - not like Australia.
Then we came to Lake Neuchatel and went up the west side of it too. The land on the other side was flat, but the activity on the lake was the same. Went through Neuchatel (we went through this place 2 days ago when we traveled west to east across Switzerland.
We had to change at Biel/Bienne to another ICN train, but this didn't matter as we arrived at Delemont an hour earlier than planned (arrived 16.18). It took us about 25 minutes to get to our hotel, mainly because we walked around a block looking for the Information Centre. When we didn't find it, we figured it was probably just the map we were reading (it was the Information Centre) - duh. Hotel was fine and we headed off for a walk around the old town and then drinks and dinner there. Still very hot.
Today was rivers and lakes
Saturday, June 07, 2014
Delémont, Jura, Switzerland
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