30th September /1st October
It is another beautiful day weather wise, we finished packing and checked out of Le Verniaz by 10 am, compressing our bags back into the Passat and finding a shady carpark for it until we are ready to leave.
We took our final funicular ride down to the village at 10 am, and wandered around to get some exercise before what is going to be a lot of sitting down later on. It is Saturday morning and the village is busier than we have seen it since we have been here. Most of the shops are open and everyone appears to be out enjoying the sunshine.
One last photo to remember Evian by
Somehow we end up at one of our favourite cafes for what has become a familiar brunch of coffee and a baguette or panini of ham and cheese.
Soon lunch time officially starts in town, shops close and restaurants fill.
Lunch time
Finally we need to head back up the hill and get in the car and drive to Geneva. We left Evian a bit after 2pm. It is not a long drive distance wise, but low speed limits, a bit of traffic and a minor navigation error result in us arriving at Geneva airport at 3.30 pm. We are well ahead of our planes departure time of 7.30pm, however the rental car return area is not near the terminal and a shuttle bus trip is required.
From now on things stop running as smoothly as we have experienced for the rest of our holiday.
In returning the car, the checkin attendant noticed we had a parking ticket, sneakily hidden deep under the wiper cavity below the bonnet level. He was obviously experienced at this. It was from Gruyeres, where we had parked in an area that we didn't realise was paid parking. The attendant explained we could pay it online, otherwise it would eventually end up with the rental company and they would charge us a substantial fee to pay it on our behalf. That all seemed pretty straight forward, so after quite a wait, the shuttle bus arrived and took us to the terminal
It is very crowded and we are a bit early, but eventually checked in after we asked someone where the Lufthansa Check in was (we were in the right area but there were only Swiss Air check ins). It turned out that Swiss Air did the checkins for about 5 airlines here.
Boarding passes issued and bags despatched we went through security and into a terminal packed with people. We had to walk a fair way to find a seat somewhere and sat down to pay our parking fine. Not so easy, nothing on the paperwork is in English, there is a QR code that takes you to the Council website where you can supposedly pay online. John does his best to interpret as we muddle our way through filling in details, but once we had completed everything, it would not allow us to proceed to pay. Eventually we gave up and John will sort it out with family help.
Then came an announcement that our flight had been delayed and that passengers with connections at Frankfurt should go to the information desk. John and I wandered off to the desk to find a huge crowd of people and one person behind the desk with a telephone in each ear, constantly being badgered by a frustrated crowd. This didn't look good. He stood up and asked if there were any passengers with connections to Singapore. We put our hand up and were ushered around to the side of the desk and given immediate attention. We gave him our boarding passes and he was on the phone to someone (maybe). First he told us we should go immediately to a different gate to catch an earlier flight, almost seconds later he said that we shouldn't. After much conversation with the mystery person on the other end of the phone he told us it would be impossible to make the connection and we could choose to stay the night in Geneva or Frankfurt, which would we prefer. We said neither we want to get to Singapore. In the end he gave up and said we had to go and see the Swiss Air booking agent. This required us to exit the departures area, go back out through security and back to the check in counters.
His instructions were hopeless and we were not keen to go back outside given the time it all may take and we had to leave the girls inside. We decided to try a transfer counter upstairs but it was unattended. Fortunately it was opposite the Swiss Air First Class Lounge, so I went over and explained our dilemma to the attendant at the door, and he was very helpful. He looked it all up on his computer and said he couldn't see there was a problem. Yes, our flight to Frankfurt was delayed but he thought we would have enough time. His advice was to ignore the guy downstairs and catch the original flight.
We didn't have a lot of options, so went to the gate, waited for someone to turn up, and he gave us the same advice. He had to rebook us on the flight because in the nonsense downstairs at the info desk, they had cancelled our booking. The plane left just ahead of the delayed time, with only about 20 people on board. We saw the little train with our bags on it turn up beside the plane so it looks like everything will be fine.
Arriving at Frankfurt having made up some lost time, we have about and hour before the Singapore Airlines flight departs. However we are a very long way from the departure gate and we certainly made up our exercise steps today getting to the new gate. We didn't wait long for boarding and the flight is full. We leave on time at 10 pm
Leaving Frankfurt
It looks like all will be well, so we settle in for the flight on a plane that is starting to look a bit old. Singapore Airlines has slipped a bit since Covid, but I guess that is the case for most airlines, hungry to make back some lost revenue. Service is slow and the food pretty ordinary.
Arrival in Singapore is a bit ahead of time, but by the time we filled out the electronic health arrival form, most of the baggage was off the plane and only a few bags were going around the carousel. Unfortunately our bags were not one of them, although John and Sharon's bags both arrived. My I - tags showed our bags were still in Frankfurt. Singapore Airlines were excellent in handling the lost baggage, identifying that our bags were already on their way to Singapore on a later flight and will arrive tomorrow morning. We were given $240 to buy essentials and hopefully we will see our bags at around 10 am tomorrow.
We are staying at the Grand Mercure Roxy Hotel on the East Coast and checkin there was seamless and given our lost baggage situation, they gave us a late checkout till 2 pm and an unexpected room upgrade.
Dinner at the hotel Chinese restaurant was very good, and we were then ready for some sleep.
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