At last we have a beautiful sunny day AND the bus to Evian is running today, making three round trips. The 9:20 coach was waiting for us at the "station" and the driver chatted with us before leaving, as we were the only ones aboard. He wanted to know how we came to choose to holiday in Thollon, so we explained that the chalet owners here had a flat down the road from us in Australia. No one else got on the bus on the way.
We bought a "journaliere" all day ticket at Evian, which cost us 64 euros each, but we were going to do four ferry trips and it would have cost even more for four separate tickets. The ferry pulled in at 10:00 and we saw that it was named "Leman" after the lake itself. It is 50 meters long and carries up to 780 passengers.
It runs very smoothly and quietly, taking just 35 minutes to cross to Lausanne in Switzerland and you can see the town all the way.
We changed over to another ferry of similar size which called in at a few smallish towns west of Lausanne. Many of these towns have fortified buildings with attractive turrets on the corners.
The ferry crossed the lake again to the French town of Yvoire. The bus driver had told us that today was the day of a sailing race starting in Geneva and finishing in Villeneuve at the other end of the lake. We cut across the leaders as we approached Yvoire. We had been told that Yvoire was similar to York and Dinan because of its long history. What we found was a lovely, old village that was crowded with people, most of them eating at expensive restaurants. The rampart walls were still there, complete with the remains of a moat.
There were the same turrets as other towns.
And two very nice entry gates.
If you noticed a piece of white skirt inside the gate you might have guessed that because it was Saturday a bride was wandering with her groom.
The church door was open and the spire was brilliant silver with a golden rooster on the weather vane. It put us in mind of the chorus "Silver and gold have I none".
We eventually found a little bar where we could buy a crepe and a drink each for 15 euros. They gave me a glass of not very cold milk with spearmint flavour. That is as close as one gets to a lime milkshake in France. By 2pm we felt we had absorbed the atmosphere of Yvoire sufficiently so we ran onto a ferry going to our next stop at Nyon, back in Switzerland. That put us an hour ahead on our home made travel plan for the day, so we were able to wander around the waterfront of Nyon for half an hour. They put a DIY piano on the promenade, but Malcolm was not tempted to try it.
We climbed the hill to the Station and caught a train with a nearly empty first class carriage to Lausanne, now half an hour ahead of schedule. That gave us plenty of time to walk the 1.5 kilometre downhill path to meet our ferry. It was the Leman again and it crosses back and forth 18 hours a day, seven days a week it seems.
While we were waiting to board we could see a glacier in the east and also the scar on the hillside from the landslide that we walked around yesterday. There was also a zigzag mark on the Memises where we descended on Wednesday.
We had fifty minutes to wait for the bus to Thollon, so we found a nearby pizza shop and shared a "mama", which was delicious. We boarded the bus and asked the driver how many passengers today. He said "only you two" so we now understand why they are reluctant to supply bus runs that no one will use. We got home at 7:30, quite tired but having experienced plenty about life around Lake Geneva.
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