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Published: April 3rd 2011
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Leaving this quaint town we headed to Annecy to meet a friend of Pam’s for dinner fondue if you please. The one thing we have found with our trusty Tomtom is that it will take you usually through the center of a town making a bloody drama at times because some city streets we not made with camper vans in mind and meeting crazy French drivers coming the other way can be daunting. The distance we had to travel today was quite a lot so we did not waste too much time as we wanted to head down through the wine region of Burgundy and then over the mountains to Annecy through Geneva, Switzerland, about 250kms all up and some of it slow going through the mountains. Firstly across to Burgundy and a lovely drive through the wineries and fields stretching up the hills as far as you can see with little fires burning where the workers were pruning and burning the off cuts. Off course no trip through this regions would not be complete with a short, yeah right stop at a cellar or Cave as it is sometimes called here. We chose one that was open and spilled in
the front door to be greeted with the usual Bonjour. After sampling several absolutely superb red’s we chose three in all, two on a very good burgundy almost like a Hill of Grace and a single bottle of Pinot Noir, unusual for us as we don’t usually like a Pinot but this one was spectacular, we paid around 25e each and if you could get them in NZ probably would set you back a coupe hundred each, these we single vineyard vintages and not mass produced at all and not exported as far as we could tell. Leaving Burgundy, reluctantly I might add, we headed for the hills of the French Alps some 90kms away and found some very narrow back roads to get there. Gaining altitude gradually until the final run which was very steep and narrow we entered the snow line to some breathtaking views of valleys and little villages nestled there. We came across this little house that was surrounded by running water with an old water wheel and waterfall by the front door. Climbing higher still we passed what we thought was the Swiss border but figured later that it was the gate where the road
would be closed if required, the road nor wended through little ski villages until finally we started to head down the other side. Coming around a bend the lower land was revealed with the lake and Lausanne and Geneva revealed, it was a stunning view with the Swiss Alps in the distance. Running out of time we decided to use the motorway to get through to Annecy and bypass Geneva, we did around 20kms on the toll road at is cost 10.50e just for that short amount of time, we went through some really long tunnels so you gotta pay for them somehow. We finally arrived in Annecy to be confronted with another lot of roadwork’s but this time it blocked our way and we had a hell of a time getting around the whole lot in the center of Annecy, finally around the works we traveled around the lake to Christians house arriving around 6.00 for drinks. After a long day we retired early as the next day was a long walk around the old part of Annecy.
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Janice Dunn
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Envious
Enjoying reading about your travels. Am impressed with Mark's story-telling... Loving the photos too xxx