Évian-les-Bains, or simply Évian, is a famous spa resort. Mary Shelley travelled through Évian with her partner, the famous English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, in the early 1810s, and in a published book about their travels he wrote of the town in this manner: "The appearance of the inhabitants is more wretched, diseased and poor, than I ever recollect to have seen."