Lake to lake (Europe 2025 part 8)

After a hectic run to our train out of Montreux (thanks to my mom spending a bit too much time in the grocery store while I was packing -- yep, she loves grocery stores too!), we were set up for the highlight of the day, the Mont Blanc Express. This train is much less well-known than the other Swiss "Panorama Express" trains, perhaps because most of the route is in France, but it was definitely my favorite of the trip (and well worth the detour, taking over twice as long as the direct route between the endpoints for the day!). 

These trains are a bit older and less fancy than most of the Swiss trains, but they're still panoramic trains with windows that don't open. ☹️

I'd prefer the classic railcars, but it looks like this one has been permanently converted to a locomotive! 

Just past the maintenance facility, the tracks abruptly slope steeply uploads in the line's one rack railway section. I tried to capture just how sharp the transition from flat track to rack railway really was, bu it's hard to show that in a picture. 

 It's not hard to show just how pretty it is climbing out of Martingy, though! I find it interesting how in Switzerland (and I think we saw this in Germany too), there are often single wind turbines off on their own. I'm used to seeing them in huge wind farms! 

I'm pretty sure this is the back of the Mont Blanc Express sign from the first picture. 

 Eventually the track turns into a side valley, home to the Gorges du Trient walkway. Looks pretty cool -- too bad it's only open in the summer and early fall, not any time I'm likely to be here. 

Oddly, you have to transfer over from one train to another, seemingly identical, one, at the French border, the only time I've had that happen in Switzerland. International train trips in Europe are normally pretty much seamless.  

Welcome to France! This is called the Mont Blanc Express for a reason, and for once, the sun was actually out and we had pretty good views from the train. 

Some parts of this are nearly as pretty as the Bernina/Albula line I visited in February! And I'm sure I would have really like this if I had visited in the winter time. I definitely want to come back here some day, and my parents liked this area so much that they're spending a whole week here next fall! 

Sadly, with that route done, it was back to regular trains for the whole rest of the trip -- no more official scenic trains for us. At least French trains tend to be pretty nice! 

Unfortunately, French trains don't line up for perfect connections like Swiss ones do, and if we had gone the direct route we would have had over an hour between trains. So we stayed on the train to where it ends at Annemasse, where our next train started. The Annemasse station was recently torn down and rebuilt, with a small chunk of the historic station saved and embedded into the new building. Directly above the station sign is a clock tower that's now almost completely impossible to see. Europeans have a tendency to not consider buildings as historic until they're several hundred years old, so this sort of thing is all too common over there. 

On the plus side, the new station does have a very nice new Carrefour! 

Fresh bread four times a day minimum -- at a train station convenience store?! Grocery stores around here make a big deal about having fresh French bread once a day, and even that is only a thing at big grocery stores with service bakeries! Though I will say, I tried French grocery store baguette and was thoroughly unimpressed -- while it was very cheap, it was hardly any better than Safeway French bread. On the other hand, we got a baguette at an actual bakery later, and it was amazing (while still being cheaper than grocery store bread here!). 

 This is a seriously nice store, with full walls of windows around most of the salesfloor and quite nice fixtures and decor. I tend not to have much love for Carrefour stores, but I guess they've gotten better in recent years! 

I definitely wasn't expecting to get on a Swiss train for the domestic French trip down to Annecy! It seems that France and Switzerland share operations of some of these routes in the Geneva area, and apparently they share rolling stock too. 

We had a great time walking around Annecy that afternoon, but apparently this is the only picture I took there -- I guess we were all just having a good time walking around and chatting so I didn't bother actually taking pictures! Oh well! There's a good chance I'll be back some day -- I quite liked France and definitely want to spend more time in the French Alps.