Monday, May 23, 2011

The travels: part 5

Annecy. What a picturesque little town! Utah State University does their French summer study abroad here every year and I can understand why! Its got everything you could hope to find in a little alpine French town. 

 Cathedral. The little obelisk is on the back of 4 turtles, who are smiling. haha
 A beautiful little river

 Quaint little bridges and roads
 Outdoor fresh produce market


 How would you like to have this view from your yard??
 Another cathedral
 A tower..

 A lake
 The castle and the dinner boats
 Kennan feeding the ducks. The little black ones we call torpedo ducks because they dive down and swim under the water. Their feet look like raptor feet...


 Tunnels! Logan should take note.. Imagine shopping in the winter. Instead of slipping and sliding, just walk under this handy tunnel we've built for you! 

Now, we had planned on seeing two major things this day. Mount Blanc and the Matterhorn. We took a bus from Annecy up to some tiny little town in the French Alps where we were planning on catching our train to Chamonix. (Where Mount Blanc is) Come to find out they are doing work on that rail line and the train would not be coming. With the rest of our day's schedule the only option was to skip Chamonix and head straight to the Matterhorn. We had to wait about an hour and a half for the next bus, and then wait for a half hour at the next city for a train that took us across the border to Geneva, Switzerland (about a 15 minute train ride is all) which dropped us off at the most run down, ghetto train station I have ever seen. I don't even think they have people working at that station. The building was all boarded up and grafitti..ed It was kind of scary. We had to walk all the way across town to catch our connecting train that would take us deep into the heart of the Swiss countryside. :) We were still exhausted from our run the day before. But we saw something.. up above the buildings that caught our attention. A  huge stream of water. We were quite curious as to what it could possibly be.. and why water would be shooting that high into the sky..
This is what we found. Its some sort of fountain. In the lake. I dont know why it is there, but it is the highest water shooting fountain that we have ever seen.
We were on the train for a few hours after that. It was a beautiful train ride. The alps never cease to amaze me. They are so amazingly large, and beautiful. The snow capped peaks and the green fields where the cows graze lower down. I love it. I didnt take any pictures from the train because they never do things justice, but take it from me, that train ride alone was worth the trip to Switzerland.
 This is the train station in Visp.
 From Visp you take a train to the Matterhorn. We got on the train and were just getting settled when the ticket collector came by. We gave him our train passes and he frowned and told us they were not valid on that railway. We would have to pay 51 euro (75 dollars)... Each! I told him we did not have any money and that we would need to get off at the next station. Ha ha! We did in fact get off at the next station and we waited for a half hour or so to ride down the mountain again and head to Interlaken for the night. That was two major fails in one day. I struggle at trip planning, but it was nice to relax on the train for a day.
 Here is the first stop of the Matterhorn train....(roll my eyes)

We made it to Interlaken that night. We stayed in a pretty cool hostel. (cool, other than we had to share a room with 8 other people.. all guys.. and all smelly. :S) However..

This is the view from the balcony of our hostel room. :)

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