Days 43-48, July 9-14 - Evian and the end of the trip (last entry)

Day 43, July 9

We didn’t do much today – I was feeling woozy, so I went back to bed. After I finally rolled outta bed around 9:30 am, we went to the grocery store to get what we needed for the next few days until we leave.

Came back to our apartment, made some sandwiches and went down by the lakeshore to have a picnic. While we were eating, there was a group of young men and women who – we think – were practicing their ski jumping skills. They were skiing down a jump into the water. We think it was ski jumping because the boots look just like those you would wear with winter skis. We took some photos and watched for a while before returning to the apartment to watch the Evian Championship television coverage at noon. Watched it until 5 pm to see who made the cut (Nelly Korda didn’t make the cut as well as former champions Celine Boutier, France, and Minjee Lee, Australia). We then migrated to the bedroom where it’s cooler at 5 pm when it is so friggin’ hot – and there’s a fan. We watched an intense tennis match between Coco Gauff and Karoline Muchova. Coco Gauff lost, but it was an awesome game.

We fixed a “real” meal – pork chops, fried potatoes and canned corn (well, it’s in a glass jar here). There was corn-on-the-cob in the grocery store – two in a vacuum wrap that I didn’t quite trust, so we bought the bottled corn. Anywho, back to the bedroom to watch a Lynx game before calling it a night.

Day 44, July 10

We got up early and trekked up the stairs (66 and a ramp) to the train station to catch the shuttle to the golf course. We waited about 20 minutes. We didn’t know what to expect, and it was much more than we even expected, if you know what I mean. The shuttle let us off on a hill, so we walked to the bottom where the entrance to the golf course for the general public was located, THEN we had to hike up a very steep incline to get to The Village where vendors and food are located. On the way, we stopped briefly to watch some golfers tee off at hole 2, which is a par 3. It was an awesome view because the hole is severely downhill (a road runs underneath the tee box, but you can’t see it from the tee box). The tee box is elevated about 32 yards. It is probably the most “spectaculaire” hole on the course – all you see is the green and the lake beyond. It’s one of those holes we’ve seen for years in television coverage that we thought was beautiful and a reason why we wanted to attend the tournament.

We floated on through the Village to the area in which most spectators gather. There is hardly any seating – a few seats at the first tee box and a lot of “seats” around the 18th green, but that’s it for seating. We ambled over to hole 5, a nice par-3 and a lake the golfers must go over to reach the green. We sat ON THE GROUND for nearly 1 ½ hours. It was challenging to get our old butts off the ground, but we did it. Visited briefly with another spectator and went over to the 18th to sit for a while. There was no shade, so we didn’t last long.

We ended up in The Village eating around 1 pm, and it was getting hot so we hiked down the steep incline to the entrance then back up to where the shuttle arrived. We got on the wrong shuttle and went up above the course to a parking lot at the local college before we realized we were on the wrong shuttle. We stayed put and arrived back to the location where we got on the shuttle and waited for the correct shuttle.

After the shuttle left us at the train station, we had to go down the 66 stairs to the apartment.

The day nearly killed us with the heat and all. We were both wiped out. Took our showers, watched some coverage of the championship, ate, sat on the terrace for a while and fell into bed. The sunset was absolutely beautiful tonight, as there were thunderstorms in the area. We didn’t get any rain at our apartment, although we could hear some thunder and see some lightning. I think it rained on the golf course, which was probably a good thing because it’ll make it a little softer.

Day 45, July 11

We decided yesterday’s outing took too much out of us, so that we wanted to rest and conserve our energy for Sunday when we definitely were going to attend the tournament.

We ventured out of the apartment to get wine and beer early in the day to beat the heat and watched the tournament coverage before tuning into the women’s finals match at Wimbledon, which was an alright game. We kept thinking Noskova was going to win – I mean she had like 6 championship points in the second set…. We couldn’t watch the rest of the match because we were starving so we wandered down to the lakeshore for supper at Babao bar.

The bar had music the prior evening from 8-11 pm, so we wanted to get there early because we didn’t like the music we heard – we wanted to eat and get outta there. We didn’t have reservations but we got seated anyhow. It was sprinkling a tad, but that was it – just a tease. I had a smash burger and a beer; Beth had focaccia, dried beef, crème fraiche and tomato pesto, and an expresso martini.

Returned to the apartment fat and happy, watched a Lynx game, then a silly movie called “Sheep Detectives” and called it a night.

Day 46, July 12

It’s championship Sunday, and the reason we extended our trip in Europe by 2+ weeks! I splurged and bought us tickets for The 16th, a hospitality tent down the 16th fairway. The ticket included a “dedicated” shuttle. We left the apartment early – around 8:45 am – to find our “dedicated” shuttle at the train station. Climbed the stairs, sat on a bench at the station for a while before looking up the address where we would get our “dedicated” shuttle and discovered we had to walk a bit more to the location.

Sure enough, we got there and our “dedicated” shuttle was a driver in a brand-new Porsche. Porsche joined the tournament’s Sponsors’ Club as an official partner this year. We had seen a lot of Porsches on Thursday driving past us peons and into what looked like a private entrance to the clubhouse. Well, the fleet was being used to shuttle VIPs – we were VIPs today! Also, a Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric car was sitting behind the 16th tee box because it was the tournament’s hole-in-one prize. I don’t think anyone had a hole-in-one on the 16th. Several got really close to the pin on Sunday but no cigar. Speaking of hole-in-one – we saw Maja Stark nearly have one on the 5th hole on Thursday.

We drank beer, wine and champagne during our time in The 16th, along with some really good finger food and desserts.

The last 5 holes were exciting, as Brooke Henderson, Aki Iwai and Haeran Ryu battled it out. Coming to the 16th, Henderson tied Ryu and Iwai (Henderson was on fire – she had 2 eagles and a hole-in-one that helped her come from 7 strokes behind to tie Ryu and Iwai on the 15th).

But then Henderson, one stroke behind the two, eagled the 18th while Iwai missed her birdie putt and Ryu sank hers – so it’s a PLAYOFF for Ryu and Henderson.

We stayed in The 16th to watch the remainder of the tournament on TV because we wouldn’t have seen anything if we had joined the throng of folks around the 18th. There were two Kiwi men watching with us. They were cheering for Lydia Ko, of course, but Lydia finished earlier with -13, six strokes off the lead. On the first playoff hole, Ryu sunk her putt and Henderson didn’t, so Ryu won. It was an exciting finish.

Anywho, trundled on to the location to catch our “dedicated” shuttle. It was kind of mayhem with everyone leaving – and two huge buses, apparently taking folks to the special train to Geneva or to the Geneva airport. We got our shuttle home, walked down the stairs and arrived in our apartment around 5 pm.

Showered – and I’m writing my last blog; Beth is in the bedroom, which is a bit cooler, reading.

Days 47-48, July 13-14

So this is my last entry – our friendly cab driver to whom we owe money from our ride from Lugrin to the train station a couple of weeks ago is going to pick us up at 11:30 am tomorrow morning (Monday); we catch a train to Geneva, check into our Holiday Inn Express at the airport, relax and prepare for our last travel day on Tuesday. We leave Geneva at 11:50 am, go to London Heathrow (oh fun!) then on to Chicago, then Tucson – arriving at 11:50 pm. Donna and Cindy 2.0 are picking us up.

We’re looking forward to being at home – it’s hot but we have air conditioning – and the monsoon season has kicked in big time. Lots of flooding and power outages around Tucson the last couple of days.

If you’ve stuck with me this long in terms of reading my travel blog, congratulations – and thanks for coming along!