A week in Annecy, the Venice of the Alps
April was the month I got to touch French soil for the first time and I think I started pretty well. I stayed for 6 nights in the medieval town of Annecy, region Haute Savoie, 40 km from Geneva.
Annecy has everything one would like to see while on holiday: mountains, lakes, castles and cobbled, canal-side streets.
Apart from the famous lake of Annecy, its effluent, Thiou, flowing through the old city of Annecy, is said to be one of the cleanest rivers in Europe. No wonder why swans enjoy that much!
If you are a romantic at heart, this is the place to go to. You can walk on Pont des Amours, wander the old town and dine near Palais de l’Isle.
You can have a picnic near the Lake and drinking wine while sitting on the grass is totally allowed, so you can go a bit extra. If you don’t have a corkscrew at hand, don’t worry, ask someone to lend you one, you will be surprised, but some people actually carry it with them.
The “Vieille Ville” (Old Town) is a delight to one’s senses. Especially the visual ones. You will see flower boxes everywhere and pastel colored houses.
As for the food, I tried fondue for the first time and it was heavenly. I think I ate cheese every day, but I knew it was going to happen.
For sweets lovers, there is a place called “Le comptoir de Mathilde”, it has everything (and more) your heart aches for in times of despair.
And that’s all I am gonna say. You need to go there and experience it yourself, and I hope you will. If it hadn’t been for an international competition, I don’t think I would have gone there, but I am so grateful that I did.
Wander the winding streets. Don’t look at the map, go by instinct. You will encounter many narrow corridors that will draw you in. But every time you get lost, you bump into something different and lovely.
