Today we’re taking a day trip to Annecy. As you may recall from last time, we’re at the train station, waiting for our track number to show up on the big board. Track numbers appear exactly twenty minutes before the train leaves, so one has to be paying attention.
Trouble at the Train Station
But when our 20-minute time came, a lot of changes rippled through the electric board. Track numbers appeared for quite a few trains, but the track number for our train didn’t appear. Instead, there was a little picture of a car where the track number should have been. We couldn’t figure out what was going on, so I tried to ask someone.
This would be fairly tricky. I’d have to point to the big board, and then get someone to see that I was asking about the tiny picture of a car on the line for the next train to Annecy. It’d be hard enough in english, let alone in français.
The first guy I asked had no clue what I was talking about. Plus, he was in a hurry. The next guy wasn’t interested in helping out. The next guy was helpful, and tried to figure out what I was talking about.
When he finally figured it out, he looked at me like I was a dummy and he said,
“Ca? Ce n’est pas une voiture. C’est l’autobus!”
(That little yellow thing up there? That’s not a car. That’s the bus!”)
The person who was helping us was a short, stout, dark-skinned guy with big, round eyes. He had some kind of Caribbean accent. He was really nice, but he made no attempt to hide his incredulation that it wasn’t obvious to me — that little yellow thing was an image of a bus, not a car.
“Mais, pourquoi y-at-il un autobus?” I asked.
(“Well, why is there a picture of a bus where our track number is supposed to be?”)
He gave me a look this time that was beyond the stupefied look he had already given me. Now he gave me a look that said,
“Sacre bleu! Comment avez-vous fait vos lacets pour chaussures ce matin?”
(“Holy cow! How did you manage to tie your shoe laces this morning?!”)
But like I said, he was a nice guy, sort of, so he explained to us that the little picture meant that we were taking a bus, not a train. We found our bus parked in a parking lot across the street from the front of the train station. And since all this had taken about ten minutes, we had about ten minutes to find the bus and get on board.
Made it!
Sure enough, the busses were right where he said they’d be. A sign identifyed one of the busses as the one to Annecy. A guy at the door of the bus was checking tickets for people who were getting on board. We didn’t know why we were taking a bus and not a train. The train company operated the bus line, though, and apparently it really was headed to Annecy. There was nothing for us to do at this point but sit back and enjoy the ride.
The bus was one of those big, nice ones, like the fancy tour busses we see all the time over here. Very comfortable. The road from Lyon to Annecy would go through some beautiful country as we’d approach the base of the French Alps. If we kept going just a little further, we’d come to Geneva, which is right on the French-Swiss border.
If we took a short detour, we could easily reach Chamonix, a huge ski resort and a town located at the base of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps. The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix in 1924. And if we took a slight detour, we could easily reach Albertville, home of the 1992 Winter Olympics.
The bus took off, (with us on it), and we headed out of town from the Lyon train station. After navigating the streets of Lyon in that giant bus, the driver got on a freeway. It didn’t look much different than a freeway back home. Once out of town, the farther we went, the more scenic the countryside became.
From Lyon to Annecy – A Beautiful Ride
The landscape was flat at first, but pretty soon it started getting hilly, with a sizable outcropping of rock here and there. The hills around us now were emerald green – like the whole area had been carpeted with green carpeting. It reminded me of Ireland, it was so green.
We passed by places that looked like they were small farming towns. We were entering into cheese country. Pretty soon, everywhere we looked we saw cows were grazing in the green pastures.
It wasn’t long before we exited the freeway and pulled into the parking lot of the Annecy train station. So what happened to the train that we were supposed to be on? I guess we’ll never know. The bus ride turned out to be pretty nice, though. And anyway, we had made it to Annecy!
To be continued…
