September 10

Big travel day today. Huge. I had a lot of anxiety about this day when planning the trip. Not sure how we would navigate it. 

We drove to Amboise for breakfast and it was a beautiful morning in a quintessential little European town. I was in heaven. This is what I love about Europe. We had breakfast at a delightful place that actually served eggs. After breakfast, I stole a quick walk along the river. Little did I know that those 15 minutes would almost cost us our train ride. We had left 3.5 hours to get to Paris, drop our car off and get on the train to Lyon. The drive was 120 miles but there was an accident close to Paris and the drive took us 3 hours. Then we couldn't find the car rental return. I'm still not sure how we finally found it. There was nothing to help us and you had to drive through a tunnel to get there. But David somehow got us there and returning the car was quick. Georgia was absolutely desperate for a bathroom by now and we had only a few minutes to get to our 2:30 train. She and Avi took off looking for a bathroom and finally found one that was locked! We headed to the train station and found one there that cost a euro. Gotta love the Europeans and their bathroom situation. Bathrooms are rare and fountains don't exist! By now, I was positive we weren't making our train. But we kept running. The train was leaving from Hall 1. No signs anywhere to tell us where Hall 1 was! But finally Georgia discovered a sign and we kept running. David is still really stiffening from plantar fasciitis and this run was killing him. But we literally boarded the train at 2:28 and with the service man yelling at us to run. The second the doors closed, the train started moving down the tracks. This was way too stressful for any of us. Oye. 

Easy high speed train ride to Lyon. We went to the restaurant on the train and found the first real good cup of coffee we have had. Of course, this is an Italian train and they serve Italian coffee. 

Got to Annecy a couple hours later. Beautiful drive. We had to park our car in a Car Park as we are in a pedestrian only part of Annecy. Finding parking and parking the car was something only David could do. Not fun. Driving down narrow streets and backing out of them when there is no parking. Ugh. Not fun and difficult. But we finally found a spot in a designated Car Park and started the walk to our AirBnB. Downtown Amboise was crawling with people and tourists. Wow. Our spot was literally over a restaurant in the busiest part of town. Time to reframe and refocus AGAIN. Not what I had in mind at all. But we are all good at that. The place was hot and noisy. Windows opened cooled things down but then the noise was really in your face. We opened up everything to cool off while we went and found a place to eat. The restaurants were absolutely packed but we fortunately found a spot and had a delicious dinner. After dinner, we walked to the lake under a full moon. What a storybook place. In spite of the people, Annecy is one of the most beautiful towns you will ever see. We returned back to our place, closed the windows tight and went to bed. I managed to sleep with the sounds of clanking, scrubbing pans and a kitchen crew breaking into bar songs occasionally. Unlike any other night of sleep I've ever had. But I'm happy to be here. Very happy.