Day 2: 2 Days late

While I am technically writing this a day after it occurred, I will use “today” for to make life easier for me, and to maintain some pretense, however false, of haaving written it the day of the events. So, that considered, this morning I woke up at 6.30. I had work to do, some important emails and Facebook messages to respond to, etc. I took a fantastic shower (this hotel was quality!), and around 8.30 we all went down for breakfast.

View. Lac Léman (Lac Génève)

View, zoomed in. Mountains present.

View even more zoomed in! The sunrise was too much to resist.

 

The breakfast was a beautiful spread, a buffet wrapping around three walls of the breakfast room. There were numerous bread options by a toaster, eggs, crêpes, a cheese selection, sausages, croissants, juices, yogurt, several cereal options accompanied by plentiful add-ins (such as nuts, dried fruits, etc.), fruit, and a more diverse jam selection than I have ever seen in my life. There was, as well, a huge coffee machine.

I was hungry. This is what remains of my plate.

The fruit. An important element, always.

After carefully, dutifully checking our beautiful room before, unfortunately, leaving it forever behind, we climbed back onto our bus. It is a good thing we took the bus all five minutes to the city center, because surely a 15-20 minute walk would have been far too much exercise after all the fantastic food we have been given, courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Bing.

We met a tour guide who took us on a guided tour of the town of Evian. In the process of exploring the beautiful and wealthy little mountain city, we filled up our water bottles with fresh mineral water from the spring (free Evian water, with expensive trip to France!), saw some fascinating architecture (the church was amongst the earliest forays into gothic architecture!) and passages, and learned how Evian became extremely wealthy, even though Dannon (not the town) owns the water bottle company: because the town owns the name “Evian”, they get paid for each bottle, and bottles are produced 24/7… Between the €8 million the town generates from water bottle naming each year and the €4 million from their casino, the small town has incredible wealth. It shows.

 

Oh, and the hotel just happens to have a spigot of spring water.

This was our hotel. It was fantastic.

I found yet another bird.

This is the historic church. The façade was redone in neo-romanesque-byzantine style, as you can see.

This is a bit more of the Gothic style we were expecting!

Something in this photo is not real (hint: it is the tromp l'oeil on the left. Those aren't windows!) No, the lake is very real.

A…wolf?

This (not-so) secret passage is just hanging out, painted. For kicks. Because this is what you do when you have an extra €12 million lying around from water bottles and casinos.

They've got a medieval watch-tower, too.

No, this is not California. Evian-les-bains has palm trees. It's winter in the mountains. Hooray for lake-effect-induced microclimates!

Here is a spring source. It just ever stops running.

But the water tastes…like water. Big surprise there.

This passage was a lot more secretive than the others!

This striking building is home to yet another spring.

This is the door to the Hôtel de Ville. Quite a sight.

Note the cloud. It is formed when warmer lake air runs into a mountain and is forced up. As it rises, it cools rapidly, and condenses, forming clouds. Afterwards, it is pretty dry as it comes down the other side of the mountain, so it warms up rapidly and, theoretically, the bottom of the other side of the mountain has warmer air. This is what I have to show for my Stanford education thus far. Cloud analysis.

We had free time in Evian, which consisted of a walk through the main town and the purchase of a couple copies of Charlie Hebdo, since they still have some there. We grabbed a quick lunch à emporter from a boulangerie-pâtisserie (as if we needed more food!) and took a group photo before heading off and up into the mountains.

Note that she is black on top, white on bottom. Hmm.

We found ice.

You can't escape the gendarmes anywhere these days!

Typical pâtisserie. Yum.

My quiche aux épinards. 

 After driving for some time, passing through gorgeous gorges and formidable forests, we arrived at a little wooden house just off the road. Since we were early, we took fifteen minutes to engage in a serious snowball fight. This was the one and only time I have attacked Stanford professors with full permission. Then, we entered the building.

And then we found the mountains.

I was cruelly assaulted by an icicle.

The Maison du Val d’Abondance was a museum—of a sort—explaining the history and traditions of the valley we had just entered. This valley is home to ski resorts and cows. The cows are the essence of its history. If you have heard of the famous Abondance cows, or the famous Abondance cheese, this is the source. The guided “tour” of the museum was interesting, but clearly the best part was the cheese/wine tasting at the end. I also bought a huge chunk of cheese for only €4,41, that I intend to give to my host family.

Dégustation de vin et de fromage. This is the famous fromage Abondance. It was fantastic. Don't buy it in the States. It's much more expensive!

It started snowing while we were inside, the sort of giant flakes that make you want to curl up in front of a fire with a blanket and a good book. When we came out, we stopped to have another snowball fight, then continued on to an old abbey, where we had another guided tour. The history of the church was interesting, and the architecture; I won't bore you with the details, but the monks who lived there were a bit strange sometimes; there were a couple images that I would never have imagined seeing in a cloister, and their scenes of Bethlehem were clearly set in the Vallée d'Abondance. It was great, beautiful, chilly, and fascinating.

When we came out, it looked like this.

The mountains were incredible.

The (new) façade. A few hundred years ago, the front burned down. 

The cloisters. A tad buried in snow.

After the cloisters, we got back on the bus and drove for fifteen minutes before raring in the town Chapel d'Abondance, where we claimed our lodgings at La Cornette, one of the fanciest hotels in the area. My two roommates and I had an extensive (and expensive!) suite, with incredible views. After settling in a bit, sending Facebook messages with our new and functioning Wifi, etc., we decided to set out on a walk before dinner. It was a truly idyllic little ski town. Too bad we weren't skiing!

View from our suite.

The balconies go on and on and on and ...

Besides the queen bed and two twins, we had a handful of bunks, just in case.

The "master" bedroom. For us, the rec room (we slept in the other)

What to do when you find a heap of snow on a pillar.

We sat down for dinner at 20h30. We started with kir, and then they brought charcuterie, salad, and then our plats. Finally, we had a tasty dessert, norwegian-style. It was all classic Savoyard cuisine, and phenomenal. Truly phenomenal. I sat by the professors and engaged in a lively and meaningful conversation that I wish was more reflective of my everyday interaction with Stanford professors!

My place setting and my kir. Thanks to the Bings.

My plate of charcuterie (or what's left of it!)

My neighbor's tartiflette. Mostly for comparison purposes. It is melted cheese.

My berthoud (a specialty involving, yes, melted cheese). You dip the potatoes in the cheese. Imagine queso fundido, à la Savoie. It was amazing.

The last of my dessert. I was too engaged in the conversation to take a photo!

THe hallway direction sign, i.e. proof that this area of the world was made for me. So many sailboats!

We went back upstairs after dinner, and the three of us watched the Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was fantastic, and talked, etc. We didn't get to bed until late, but it was well worth it! Speaking of late, it is 3h11 my time. That is absurd. Bonne nuit!

P.S. Eiffel Tower du jour

Today, as I promised, was unimportant. I got up. I did the laundry. I worked. I went to ISEP, where I worked. I went to Monoprix, where I bought hot-pepper dark chocolate. I went home. I worked. Dinner, of course, was fantastic, with the same dish I described a while ago with the white sausages. We started out with some other type of saucisse and moved on to the plat, then ate my Thom d'Abondance cheese that I brought, which, we agreed, was fantastic. Then the gâteau that my père d'accueil had made, and then I have been working.