In the harsh morning light, we woke up in room that we were not completely thrilled about. It was not really that bad (yes, it was) but it was less than we usually book and likely in a part of town that we would not have chosen given information that is easily available to complete your due diligence. But beggars can't be choosers, I guess.  C'est la vie. We decided late last night or was it early this morning that we will be moving on to Aix les Bains on this cloudy and sometimes showery day.

Regional trains from Lyon to Aix les Bains run about every couple of hours. We stayed a single night in the hotel and planned for a noon departure from Lyon. We followed a similar route back to the train station that we took last night but this time on the west side of the Rhone. Hats off to Lyon, they seem to have many cycle routes, and they are very well marked. 

Train stations are never a relaxing experience. We worked our way through the kiosk ticket purchase process and then watched the monitors for the platform assignment. Platform J for the train to Annecy - the last stop on the run that includes our stop at Aix les Bains. Platform J`s elevator was not working, so Scott carried each loaded bike up the two sections of stairs to the platform. He likes a challenge! The inbound train arrived and we spotted the two carriages with bike symbols.  We hustled down the platform and waited for our turn to board. Fortunately, there were only 5 bikes waiting as the carriage has six bike hooks on the ceiling. Unfortunately, people had positioned themselves in the fold down seating right below the bike hooks. They were slow to be convinced to give up their seats but sitting beside an oily chain seemed to drive home the message that bikes have a priority here and they moved on to more pleasant seating. The train was quite full and we took turns standing for a couple of stops before seats, facing in the right direction, became available.

Reaching Aix les Bains we scrambled to get everything off the train and reload for the short ride to our hotel. It is a comfortable place and we relaxed on a couch in the lobby and sipped coffees that our hosts brought to us. Wonderful. Now this is much better.

Our room was available a bit early and we spent our afternoon looking out the window at the light drizzle from our king bed. Nothing much got done today except some blogging, research and catching up on missed sleep. We think two nights here will be good, so we booked a room for tomorrow night as well.

We headed out for dinner armed with an umbrella, just in case, but it was not needed. Aix les Bains is easy to like. Small, approachable and clean feeling. The restaurants were just opening up and we were early by French standards, but we really had our appetites set on Thai food. Simple bowls of traditional menu items satisfied our hunger, and we walked back to the hotel looking at the town. Tomorrow we will get a more complete feel for Aix les Bains and ride to the nearby town of Chambery. 

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