Aigle / Évian-les-Bains

Today Erin and I started off the day taking the train to Aigle, which is the heart of the Chablis wine growing region.

We were actually in Aigle for another reason, though. As luck would have it, the Tour de France was passing through Aigle on its sole Switzerland stage today. Thus, we took the 45 minute trip from Lausanne and found a nice spot along the course to take in the race amongst the locals.

Though what we saw of the race itself didn’t last very long (perhaps only a couple of minutes for all the riders to pass through), the atmosphere was very festive and had somewhat of a 4th of July celebratory-type feel with people camped out all day along the course.

After the race, we headed back to Lausanne and took the ferry across the lake to Évian-Les-Bains (of bottled water fame) in France. The ferry takes about 30 minutes and provides great views of both Switzerland and France.

The weather was great, so it turned out to be a perfect day to be out on the lake. The people with the sailboat in the picture below definitely had the right idea.

We spent most of our time in Évian walking around the lakeside promenade and the main avenue where there was a street fair going on. We didn’t make it to see the Évian springs, unfortunately, but we did see the public fountain from which Évian water flows non-stop and the locals come with empty jugs to fill up for their weekly drinking water supply.