Holiday Day 25 – Two steps back in time

As with the rest of Europe we are now enjoying a heat wave, the temperature in Evian this evening reached 35 degrees, although at least that is what it said outside of the local swimming pool. On the other hand do you think that swimming pools have a vested interest to exaggerate the air temperatures to encourage custom? I think that is a debate for another day. We certainly found a different way of keeping cool.

There are many boat routes on Lake Geneva linking local towns. The one from Evian to Lausanne is a high capacity route that has as its basis the commerce linking the two towns. A cursory examination of the people embarking on the 8:15 ferry this morning revealed that many of them were travelling for work purposes to Switzerland. I suspect that some of the people coming the other way were coming to shop at the market in Evian.

However many of the routes are plied by paddle steamers dating back to the early 20^th Century. They link the towns round the side of the lake. I suspect that this is purely for touristic reasons, as all the lakeside towns are linked by rail with the exception of the French side to Switzerland. So we caught the ferry to Lausanne a direct trip across the lake, itself a lovely experience but more like the Isle of Wight ferry.

You dock at what looks like a beach resort suburb at the end of a metro line. It is dominated by grand old hotels and just radiates money and order. There was certainly no random crossing of the street. It is also expensive, to small bottles of water for 7 Euros!!!

After a wait we boarded La Suisse a very elegant lake paddle steamer. She was very broad with a tapered bow presumably built for speed. We had booked the lunch cruise and were so installed in the lovely wood panelled dining room. The boat had been completely restored to representative of its heyday. As it was so hot we had the large window completely open all the time. Simply we travelled around the south side of lake calling at various towns, making our way to Montreux. The views of the Alps were just stunning framed as they were by the bright blue of the lake. The towns were picture post card, with little chateau and alpine style houses.

It was absolutely perfect as were sheltered from the sun in a lovely lake breeze. All in all it took about three hours to circumnavigate the lake while eating an excellent lunch. Then with Swiss punctuality all the boats met at Lausanne and connected back to Evian.

As we strolled back to the hotel we noticed the funicular. This had originally served the hotels higher up the hill and fell into disrepair to be restored in the early part of this century. It was a lovely old-fashioned trip of about a mile, and even the opportunity to see the workings at the top. It was also free presumably funded by the taxpayers of Evian. As an added bonus Marion got talking to a mother and son from Middlesbrough, he was relocating to the work on the large hadron collider. So we kept to conversation to cable railway technology!!!

All in all this was a great last full day to our holiday. Tomorrow it is back to the motorways to drive to the Champagne area of Marne Valley.