Since arriving in Les Gets four weeks ago, we haven’t really left town – other than a 15 minute trip down the road to Taninges for a ‘big shop’. With the crowds in town for Easter weekend we thought we’d get out and about to visit somewhere new.
Annecy has been on our list of places to visit since Rita, an 80 something ex-neighbour of ours, exclaimed that she had always wanted to visit and it was still on her to-do list. It is supposed to be stunning and we were looking forward to seeing it for ourselves. If it could manage to scrub up well on such a grim and rainy day we’d be very impressed!
We piled into the van and drove through the gorge and back down to Taninges then up and over to Cluses. We joined the motorway back towards Geneva before turning left and heading south for Annecy. 50 minutes later we turned off and followed the signs for ‘Annecy Centre Ville’. As with everywhere billed as beautiful, you have to drive through the rest of town before you get to the good bit. We picked our way off a spaghetti of roads, though roundabouts and junctions, past a plethora of bland high-rise apartment buildings before spotting signs for ‘Le Lac’ then breaking out onto the front to be greeted with a strip of green parkland and a spectacular view of the lake and the mountains beyond.
The blurb told us that Annecy gets super busy and after driving around for twenty minutes to find a parking space on a wet, cold, windy and rainy day like this, we realised it must be insanely busy in the summer. We wrapped up, and with lunch top on our list of priorities, headed for the old town to find somewhere to eat. We had to lean into the driving wind and rain as we walked over the parkland and joined a crowd on a bridge over the Canal Du Vassé to get some obligatory tourist shots of the ‘Pont des Amours’ and the knitted items that seemed to be attached to everything in sight. It turns out this is ‘knitted graffiti’ and is part of a sensory festival taking place in Annecy this week.
We turned right off the bridge and headed for the Canal Du Thiou. Annecy town lies at the outlet end of Lake Annecy looking back over a spectacular vista of turquoise water cradled by rugged mountains. It’s not just the natural scenery that makes this place such draw. The old town has architectural and historical treasures to match. The oldest part of town was built around the Canal du Thiou draining water from the lake into the River Fier. A small network of streets, bridges and archways weave around fabulous old homes lining the canals and linking the waterways giving it a feel of Venice.
It was getting late for lunch so we stopped at the first restaurant we came to on the canal. After a couple of tasty pizzas served by the attentive and pleasant staff we headed back out, refuelled and ready for some touristing. Nina had read that there was an exhibition on the geography of the Alps at the Chateau which sounded appealing so we wandered around the streets and canals absorbing the ancient beauty before heading for the Chateau and climbing the ‘Ramp du Chateau’. We wandered round to the imposing front doors. ‘CLOSED’. Ah well, it was Easter Monday after all. We dodged more dog poo (grrr) on the walk back alongside the lake and, after letting the kids burn off some energy in a playground for half and hour, we jumped back in the van and headed for home.
Annecy certainly did not disappoint. It is a stunning place and when working with such an accomplished subject it’s virtually impossible to take a bad photograph. It was a bit of a flying visit really and we definitely want to return when the weather’s better. It’d be lovely to see it all lit up at night as well. In the meantime, we’ll be reporting back to Rita that it’s definitely worth a visit.
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