climbing the alps...or at least the stairs

Today was mainly a driving day as we had a lot of ground to cover to get up here. We walked around Nice this morning wishing we had more time in the south - but the time we had was great and we headed up north for annecy. We were going to stop for lunch in avignon but when we got there the town was depressed and yucky and we couldn't find a place to park and it was getting close to the 2 pm food cutoff so we abandoned that plan and hit the highway. Thought we'd try out french fast food so we stopped at the autogrille, kind of a roadside souplantation as it turned out - totally decent for what it was - I got lots of veggies and fresh grapes and stuff. Anyway we then drove pretty much straight to annecy with just one pit stop. We literally went through the alps in a tunnel that looked like the disneyland matterhorn ride. Or at least the part of the people mover that goes through the matterhorn. Like I could ever survuve the actual matterhorn ride. Ha! Our hotel is nice but of all the staircases we have had to encounter this one was probably the most daunting. We are on the 3rd floor which effectively means 6 flights of stairs. Thankfully the hotel man brought our luggage up...anyway we settled in, caught our collective breath and then went to dinner. Fortunately we had some options. Ended up with Italian which I have definitely liked better than french though this Angelino sure could use a chinese chicken salad... Anyway that's about all for today - tomorrow we are switzerland bound!