Days 40-42, July 6-8

July 6 was a travel day. We left Zermatt for Evian les Bains; Jae and Boots left Zermatt for Geneva. We traveled on the same train but parted ways in Geneva where Jae/Boots were going to spend the night before traveling to their home in Angers, France.

We changed trains in Geneva and on the way to Annemasse, there was – what we thought – a drug bust right in front of us! Three police officers (two males and a female with a K9 drug detector) swooshed by us and confronted a young man who was sitting at the door of the train. One male questioned the man, asking for identification, while the other male put on gloves and searched the young man’s backpack. They didn’t find anything, so they left.

We arrived in Evian and our hostess, Sabine from Germany, picked us up at the train station. The station is located nearly above the place in which we’re staying BUT it’s a lot of stairs going down from the station and/or quite the walk if you don’t use the shortcut, so Sabine picked us up. She was so kind and generous.

Before bringing us to the apartment she and her husband use during the winter (they live across the lake in Lausanne, Switzerland, she gave us a tour so we were familiar with stuff before we left the apartment. It was good – she showed us the old town, the headquarters for Evian water, grocery stores and even drove us up to the golf course that really isn’t far from our apartment but it’s ALL uphill.

Right below the road was a green – I suspect a putting green – and who was there? None other than Ariya Jutanugarn (and a couple of other Korean golfers that we couldn’t identify). Ariya is a Thai golfer and is the first golfer, male or female, from Thailand to win a major championship. She was the number one ranked golfer in the Women’s World Golf Rankings in June 2017. Her sister, Moriya, also plays on the LPGA tour. Her betting odds aren’t good – it’s at 200-to-1. But we yelled, “Go, Ariya!” and she smiled and bowed to us!

Sabine dropped us off at a grocery store so we could get enough food for a couple of days. It is half-a-mile from our apartment so it was kind of a slog getting home after traveling all day and the heat is returning. But we did good, although both of us are travel tired and weary. We migrated to the bedroom where it is cooler to watch a Lynx game before hitting the sack.

July 7

We both were up before 8 am this morning, and the view from our apartment terrace of Lake Geneva is absolutely beautiful. Had our coffee and brekkie, taking things slowly. We took off around 11:30 am to accomplish two tasks: get our credentials for Sunday’s competition (we bought tickets for The 16th, a hospitality tent with drinks and snacks all day) and to get me a pack of ciggies. I know – I’m still smoking but only about 2-3 a day. I’m trying to quit).

We took the upper road that led to the old town. Evian les Bains is literally Evian The Baths. The thermal baths have attracted lots of people and the holiday resort has been visited, over two centuries, by royalty such as Kings Edward VII and George V of the United Kingdom, and King Farouk of Egypt, and celebrities such as Countess Anna de Noailles and Marcel Proust.

The springs of Évian were still rather unknown at the time of the French Revolution, but the First Empire's interest for spa towns inspired a scientist to analyze them in 1807 and 1808. In 1823, Genevan entrepreneur M. Fauconnet launched the Évian mineral water company, and in March 1827 purchased the city's two main springs, the better-known being the Cachat spring named after the family that sold it. M. Fauconnet's company eventually went bankrupt, and the springs were bought by the Hôtel des Bains.

A fun fact: In the 1818 novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein spends the first night of his honeymoon in Évian, but cannot prevent his monster from strangling his young wife Elizabeth. Mary Shelley travelled through Évian in 1817 with her partner, the famous English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Another fun fact for me, as a photographer: The Lumiere brothers had a villa in Evian and owned a hotel here. Lumiere is the French word for “light.” Auguste Marie and Louis Jean Lumière are known as some of the first cinematographers. They created the Cinematographie, a true camera and projector machine they patented in 1895. On Dec 28, 1895, at the Salon Allemand du Grand Café in Paris, the Lumière brothers held the first public cinema screening. Their Cinématographie projected 10 short actuality films, each under a minute, capturing everyday life with unprecedented clarity. Actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that uses footage of real events, places, and things (essentially B-roll) and is a predecessor to documentary film. Unlike documentaries, actuality films were not structured into a larger narrative or coherent whole.

Anywho, we went into the old town and got some ciggies and a market caught Beth’s eye so she spent some time wandering through the stalls which, unfortunately, were closing. Apparently, it’s there only during the morning hours before the heat sets in. She did buy a pair of very cute sandals.

We continued down the hill to the accreditation center to get our bracelets for The 16th on Sunday. The building houses offices for the Evian Mineral Water Company. You’re probably familiar with Evian water, eh? Well, the origin of Evian can be traced to 1826 when the Societe des Eaux Minerales mineral water company was founded. Evian first became a public company in 1859 as the "Société anonyme des eaux minérales de Cachat" and a year later it became French when Savoy was incorporated into France under the Treaty of Turin. The French Ministry of Health reauthorized the bottling of Cachat water on the recommendation of the Medicine Academy in 1878. Evian entered the U.S. market in 1978. It is owned by Danone, a French multinational corporation. In addition to the mineral water, Danone Group uses the Evian name for a line of organic skin care products and a luxury resort here in Évian-les-Bains.

Strolling further down the lakeshore, we stopped for a bevvie then sauntered on to the apartment. I took a nap then we watched Naomi Osaka get beat at Wimbledon, ate supper and watched the Lynx get beat again. Two consecutive losses for the Lynx.

July 8

It’s a down day for us. We’re conserving our energy for the weekend, so we’re staying in the apartment today reading, etc. We plan to get to the grocery store tomorrow before noon when it’s cool, then watch the golf tournament at noon on TV or streaming, we hope. We’ll go to the course early Friday morning for the second round, then moving day on Saturday and the final day on Sunday.

BTW, step 16 of the Tour de France begins in Evian on July 21. They bike a little over 16 miles to Thonon-Les-Bains. Step 17 on July 22 is from Chambery to Voiron.