Day 16 - Sep 16, 2009 Last updated: 10/14/09 7:00pm PT
Day seize, Travel from Chamonix, France to Arles, France.
Another long travel day. We left Chamonix between 8 and 9am, taking a shuttle van back to Geneva Switzerland, where we got dropped off at the airport. Took a train from the airport to the city center, hoping to see some of Geneva. That didn’t happen because the two local train options we had to get to Lyon, France were cancelled and were replaced by a bus. Let’s see, 2.5 hours on a bus or 1.5 hours on a TGV train. No decision needed. But we had to leave right away to catch the TGV. It cost a little bit more than the local train we were planning on taking, but was much more comfortable than a bus. Once in Lyon, we had to wait for the next train to Arles, France. Once we boarded we just sat there. It left 1.5 hours late.
I’ll try not to complain about Arles too much, but I wasn’t impressed. It’s a small town with lots of graffiti for its size, and lots of dog droppings. The restaurants don’t open for dinner until 7pm. I’d read that Europeans eat dinner later than Americans, but there seemed to be a bunch of people milling about outside of the restaurants waiting for them to open. Seems like someone could open a restaurant from 5-7pm and make a fortune on American tourists. I don’t recall any problem getting food early in any other city on our trip.
Arles. French words usually have a lot of letters at the end that are not pronounced. According to the voice announcing the stops on the train, Arles is pronounced Aaaaa.
Arles’ Roman arena from 2000 years ago, still in use today as an arena for the ‘bullgames’, which requires the bull fighter to remove a ribbon from the bulls horns. No messy blood, unless the bull wins. They are in the process of refurbishing the arena.
