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Published: September 14th 2012
Apologies for the title but a town with a name like Annecy invites all sorts of ugly puns so if a couple more slip out don't go getting all "antsy" with me. Anybody out there still reading?
Just arriving here caused a few raised eyebrows. Our first TGV and I don't know how fast they go but it's quick. The French countryside slips by in a blur. Close your eyes and you'd swear you were deaf. Minimal noise, minimal motion inside the carriage and you arrive 550 klms from Paris in a flash and a whisper. Wake up Oz and give us decent rail links. Vote 1: G. Yeates for a better rails system.
Off the soapbox, off the train and the headlines read:
"Hitman Style Assassination. 5 Shot Dead in Annecy".
Penny: "Nice place you've brought me to Gaz".
If you can turn a bIind eye to mass murders, then Annecy is a nice place. Nice sounds rather like lip service so I'll ratchet up the superlatives to an appropriate level. How about, Annecy is the sweetest provincial town in the history of mankind. That's obviously subjective and perhaps overamping a tad but you get
Annecy
Had to throw in a reflection somewherethe idea.
Annecy is well esconsed on the "in the know" tourist hit parade but to a large degree has managed to slip somewhat under the international radar. Local tourist spin proclaims Annecy as, join the queue, The Venice of France. Seems any town with a canal will latch onto the shirt tails of Venice in their advertising promos. This town doesn't need to. Offer me a week in Annecy or a week in Venice and I'll be sending my postcard to Venice from here. This place can strike a nerve.
Those canals wind through a town interwoven with a maze of cobbled alleyways lined with stock standard but tastefully restored medieval buildings, all with the usual boutique tourist businesses embedded within that magnificent architecture.
We rooted ourselves down in an apartment in one of those buildings. I don't know how old this unit block is but don't the French know how to maintain them. Taste oozes out of every pore of the stone walls and everything, walls, architraves, ceilings, framework, they all tilt at angles totally out of sync, as if the entire structure only remains upright through sheer faith. It's perfect in all its imperfection.
Annecy Chateau and the bride
Penny showing some leg in the stained glass refractions of the chateau's stairs. You could be forgiven for never wanting to exit these rickety confines and just sit around reading books, surrounded by those walls with a thousand stories of their own.
Of course you do venture outside because you are in Annecy and lolling around this town you then wonder how you can drag yourself back to that apartment.
Canals, cobbled lane ways and medieval buildings is a solid tourism armoury to have up your sleeve but Annecy has a few more bullets in the chamber. The town is overseen by a brooding chateau with a sweeping view of the canal emptying into a lake going by the intriguing name of Lake Annecy.
The whole kit n caboodle sits at around the 450 metre mark and in the shadows of the mighty French Alps. Annecy is a complete European package.
And that's just the city. This is the head honcho of France's Haute Savoie region which hosts a sphere of other attractions, Mont Blanc and Chamonix being the divas. How many did we get to? None actually. Anchored in Annecy, letting each day run its course, destressed to the point of comatosed we couldn't quite get around to
hiring a car and dragging ourselves away, except:
Geneva is but a healthy toss of a boule down the autoroute and we had a lunch date with the Davis'. It brought back memories of a soap commercial from years ago:
"James, Tahiti sounds nice", as James the pilot swings the Learjet towards the tropics.
"Penny, Geneva sounds nice for lunch". We forgot to pack the private plane for this trip so we were forced to take the bus but it still rings "vachement decadent".
The lunch wasn't half shabby either, vegetarian cannelloni in a cosy bistro in the old quarter with Jay and Tracey's hometown goss updates as a side dish.
On the subject of food, this week has been a stellar culinary 7 days. Not that we ate out. The week, like the previous week in Paris, was a quasi attempt at morphing into locals. You like your ingredients fresh, direct from the farm? Have a crack at Annecy's thrice weekly street market. Local producers from across the Savoie shoehorn their stalls into the twisting lanes and the shoppers flock elbow to elbow, drooling over the pickings. It's as if someone hands out happy
Old Town
Veille Ville bistro all set up for lunch pills on entering as vendors, buyers and tourist tyre kickers alike sport smiles like split watermelons.The cheese maker, the vegetable farmer, the fruit guy, nougat man, cured sausage maker, the chap whose wife bakes the baguettes in an oven out the back of their farm. And on it goes.
We'd drag the spoils back to our apartment and poor old me, married to Madame Cordon Bleu, would sit back and wait for the feast to unfold. Can life get any better?
Is this the perfect town? This judge has the 9.5 score card raised. The missing 0.5 is because there's no surf (hasn't stopped Rip Curl and Quicksilver from setting up shop 500 klms from the nearest wave).
There is snow however. Anybody up for an Alps ski trip next year?
Yeatesy
Another week and another apartment, this time Annecy, a little lake side town 35 klms south of Geneva. If you had to stop travelling for just a while, Annecy is the place you would like to settle. It has everything, a lake, paddle boats, swans, a medieval hotel, a cycle track around at least half of the lake, an old town,
a new town, tourists and lots of places to get away from tourists. Or maybe it's just that we have been traveling solid now for 8 months that Annecy was a great place to smell the roses.
And smell them we did in all shapes and forms. To make the stay even more inviting our apartment is just charming. It's old, it's new, it's chic and above all it's French. It's walking distance to everything, the boulangerie , the chocolatier, the fromagerie, the bottlo, the bus to Geneva, the trains to Nice and even the bike hire shop.
I managed to finish off a few books, cycle around Lake Annecy, take a dip in the lake ( even if it was only up to my ankles), mull around the shops which included shopping in the farmers markets for fresh produce so I could cook some home cooked meals. Ahhh the simple things in life!
It's been a blast, I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute and loved catching up with Tracey and Jay for a bit of home news and to feel back in touch with the world.
As I am writing my blog however
Annecy
Old buildings, a canal, a lake and mountains. Not a bad recipe. I have been thinking a little about an elderly man I came across today. Gary and I walked up to yet another church this morning. It was a clear, crisp and slightly chilly morning so I lingered longer inside the church to warm up ( as you do!). As I came out of the church Gary was already outside walking around as I started down the stairs. The little man ahead of me missed his footing and tumbled backwards hitting his head several times on the stone stairs. My very limited French failed but fortunately my loud voice yelling to his aid alerted the pompiers who happened to be doing a drill at the church this morning to rush over and administer first aid to the fellow. He was cut, grazed and I suspect very bruised and he squeezed my hand thanking me for coming to his aid, but his eyes said he didn't want me to leave him. I hope you are ok mister, wherever you might be tonight.
Adieu Annecy for now.
Penny
More images at:
www.colvinyeates.zenfolio.com
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
Great photos and the slow life
I adore Annecy, and you've depicted it perfectly! I love that you're just living in and feeling these places and letting them settle in your and our bones. Bon voyage!