I tried to communicate with one of the employees that I wanted scrambled egg whites. He asked how many and I said three. He showed up at our table with three plates of regular scrambled eggs. I looked confused and he asked if these weren’t what I wanted. I said scrambled egg whites and he finally caught my intent and then said that there was no French word for the egg white but he then returned two of the plates of scrambled eggs and had someone scramble some egg whites for me.
Amy caught a cold and was not feeling well. We packed up all of our luggage for our flight to Vienna, Austria later in the evening and started off first to the medieval town (commune) of Yvoire in France. It was just starting to get busy as we arrived. I missed a good photo op as a busload of tourists arrived and wouldn’t move out of the way!
We walked through town and down to the waterfront. So beautiful and a welcome day of sunshine and no rain.
From Yvoire we drove to Annecy. I was really looking forward to this day in Annecy, but was totally dismayed as we drove in to town and it was so completely overrun with tourists and local folks enjoying the resort town. Parking was packed. We drove up the hill above the city center and lucked out with covered parking. It was still crazy though as the sign at the entrance would alternate between full and available as cars left the parking area. Then it would issue a new ticket and allow another car in to the lot.
Chris wanted to back in to a spot shortly after entering the garage. I hopped out and directed traffic around so that someone else wouldn’t just zip in to our awesomely narrow spot. Whew.
The old town area was shoulder to shoulder with people and was overwhelming to say the least. Chris took the girls to find a bathroom in the park around Lake Annecy, and I wandered around taking pictures.
My family didn’t seem too keen on getting mixed up in the masses of the old town center (or in dealing with the many flies). I wasn’t either, but I still wanted pictures. I was fairly disappointed as I had really been looking forward to enjoying Annecy. I suppose visiting in the Fall is nicer, though cooler, because it is not during the tourist season.
Chris bought the girls ice cream and we found a spot on the grassy area by the lake and sat for a while watching all of the people who were sunbathing, biking, boating, picnicking, dealing with crying kids, and playing games. It seemed as though it was their first day of summer and they were enjoying it immensely. We were tired and happy to sit and watch.
Our flight to Vienna didn’t leave until 8 pm, so we had the afternoon to be leisure.
We arrived on the French quadrant of the airport and might have had to go around some roundabouts a time or two to figure out our way. After returning our rental car, we crossed over to the Swiss side of the airport for our flight and were dismayed to find that our tickets to Austria had been cancelled. Fortunately we had arrived with plenty of time for Chris to sort out the tickets, but still it was frustrating.
Chris uses his Global Services status a lot in these kinds of situations. It will be sad when he loses it next year. The tickets were rebooked and we set off through security and then off to find some food. There weren’t a lot of choices and we settled on some ham and cheese paninis, yogurt, and drinks. After checking in for boarding the flight, we had to wait on the HOT jetway for about ten minutes as the crew finished getting ready for us.
The flight was only half full so I imagine that is why rebooking tickets wasn’t a problem. Our luggage was first off the plane in Vienna. Chris ordered an Uber mini van to pick us up with all of our stuff and we were off to the Hilton Garden Inn, located approximately 30 minutes outside the city center. It would be a distance for us to travel back and forth each day, but the Hilton points required for two rooms was less than the normal rate for one room.
It was nice to fall in to bed after a long day of sightseeing and travel.