Aix les Bains

Richard and I stayed overnight in Aix Les Bains whilst driving from the U.K. back home to France. Aix Les Bains has been a spa resort since the eighteenth century, visited by people from all over Europe. Queen Victoria is said to have stayed there to relax and take the waters. Apparently she called herself the "Countess of Balmoral" on these incognito visits. Today it is a very popular destination for the pensioners who enjoy visiting for their state funded thermal treatments. The Lac du Bourget is situated just 3km from the town centre, it is beautiful and the largest natural lake in France. Rising above Aix Les Bains is Mt Revard (1550m), a vast plateau of meadows and forests with trails for ramblers and cyclists, while it is also one of France's finest cross country skiing areas. The Art Deco Thermes Nationaux and the tourist office are built into a well preserved shell of a Roman temple which houses a small museum where you can see a collection of Roman sculpture. There are other Roman sites such as the Arc de Campanus which is a rare funerary monument from the first century BC. Aix Les Bains is always busy and has around a hundred hotels to satisfy the year round visitors. We had not booked anywhere to stay and after driving for a while we found ourselves down by the harbour. There were two hotels that we could see, we went into one of them and although the door was unlocked there were no lights on and we couldn't find any staff. Just as we were about to leave we noticed a note on the reception counter. Between us we managed to understand most of it, and we headed round the corner to the bar for service. This looked closed, but as we walked away a young man came over and opened the door. He gave us some keys and we went to have a look at some rooms. The outside looked modern but the rooms were furnished with old furniture but it was very cheap and as it was clean and we were tired we were more than happy to stay there for the night. I don't remember the name of the hotel but I remember that it only cost about thirty euro's for the night. It turned out that we were the only people staying in that hotel that night and it was very weird, no lights on anywhere and it felt quite spooky, or maybe that's just me. Even though we were quite tired we still felt like a quick walk around the harbour to stretch our legs before we headed into the busiest bar. There was a nice view from inside out across the harbour and we enjoyed a few large Hoegarten beers before we ventured outside again for another walk. We walked right along the quay side admiring the boats but we got quite cold so we headed back to the bar we had been in earlier for something to eat. As we were in Aix Les Bains off season not all of the bar/cafe/restaurants were open so there was not that much choice. We had a very enjoyable meal before we went back to our hotel for the night. Very early the next morning, just as it was getting light we continued our journey home.

Tourist information website for Aix-les-Bains: http://www.aixlesbains.com

Nowhere could one find such perfect concord between water, mountains, earth and sky ~ Balzac.