We awoke quite early and could hear the rain lashing down outside. Not the best start to our day for our trip to Annecy in France. This had always been part of our plan, to visit the Venice of the Alps. The hour long single bus journey was booked months ago for the princely sum of £12.96 for two people. We’d used FlixBus to travel from Zagreb in Croatia to Ljubljana in Slovenia a few years ago and it’s a cheap way to travel. A little bit of rain wasn’t going to stop us today.
When we left the hotel it had stopped raining and the walk from there to the central bus station took ten minutes. There were quite a few coaches there, but not our FlixBus. We saw an English family who were also travelling on the same bus, except they were continuing to Milan. At least we knew that others were waiting for it.
Eventually the bus arrived about five minutes before departure. We had the jolliest welcome from our driver and we were soon on our way.
20 minutes into our journey, we had reached the Swiss-French border. We didn’t even have to stop for customs, the bus drove straight through.
The scenery on the journey to Annecy was very much like the Lake District, very lush and green. There were quite a few low, dark clouds but, at this point, no rain.
We arrived in Annecy ahead of schedule and got off the bus, following the google map straight to Vieille Ville (old town). I could see straightaway why Annecy is called the Venice of the Alps. There are cobbled streets, winding canals and pastel-coloured houses. There are also many bridges over Le Thiou, a river that joins the Lac d’Annecy (Lake Annecy).
We ended up in the old town at the Rue di Pont Morens where there were many small independent shops. Unfortunately with it being so close to the water there were little midges everywhere. We spoke to a young man selling nougat who said that they don’t bite and we somehow ended up buying some pistachio nougat.
Venturing further into the old town we acquired some obligatory fridge magnets from another shop, to take home with us.
We wandered down the narrow cobbled streets and decided, while it was dry, to head to the Lac d’Annecy. It was only a nine minute walk from where we were and was easy to find at the edge of the old town. We walked for a bit, taking photos and just chilling out. It’s a really beautiful lake, surrounded by mountains of the Haute-Savoie region of France. The water is so clear here too; it is fed by mountain springs.
There is an island on the lake called Swan Island, which shares its name with the one at Hornsea Mere. Unlike the one back home, this island is artificial and was created between 1854 and 1859 as part of major development at the lakeside. A pair of swans were either donated by the city of Geneva, or the Royal House of Savoy in Turin, Italy. This is where the name île des cygnes originated.
We left the lake behind as JC was getting hungry. There is no shortage of eateries here. We liked the look of the menu at Le Freti so we asked for a table. We opted for a Swiss salad accompanied by Apremont, a local white wine. The salad was described as “pommes de terre, oignons, pickles, shallots, dill, miel, olive oil, mustard, alpine gruyere aop, appenzeler, dried beef “tavaillon” grisons style. When it came it was a mixture of potato and cheese with rather sharp flavours of the pickles, shallots, honey and mustard. It went well with the local wine but best both of us, the portions were huge.
We managed to pay eventually, despite a Basil Fawlty type waiter being a bit grumpy with some of his customers. It was maybe a blessing in disguise anyway, because there was a huge downpour before we left.
We walked down the Rue Sainte-Claire and turned to hike up a steep hill towards the Chateau d’Annecy. We walked past it without trying to get in, we weren’t that bothered. Instead we walked back down the other side to get back to the town close to the lakeside.
https://en.lac-annecy.com/cultural-heritage/musee-chateau-dannecy-annecy/
At this point we also had decided that we didn’t need the later bus back to Geneva, so I changed the departure time to 16:10.
We then headed towards to Palais de L’Île, which people say it is a house in the shape of a ship. Some of the buildings date back to 12th century.
Palais de l’Ile, often described as a “house in the shape of a ship” has been a prison, a courthouse and an administrative centre. It is an original structure, the oldest parts of which date from the 12th century.
Around the Palais, lots of tiny midges were flying around, so we moved away quickly. They all seemed to be at the edge of Le Thiou. We then stumbled upon a really cool bar called Cafe des Arts, on the Passage de L’Île. This bar had quite a bohemian feel to it, with paintings on the wall opposite outside. The bar sold international and local beers, local wines and spirits. Staff were really friendly and helpful too.
https://m.facebook.com/cafedesartsannecy?locale=fr_FR
It was one of those places that I could have sat and watched the world go by but we had a bus to catch so headed back to the station. This time we’re in a double decker style bus and went upstairs to our seats.
No sooner did we set off when the heavens opened again. We could see the mountains for cloud and looked like the rain was there for the day.
We didn’t have to stop at customs to get back into Switzerland some 40 minutes later (bonus) and arrived back in Geneva soon after.
We went back to the hotel and got changed before going out to look for somewhere to eat. JC wanted to go to the old town, so we went up the steep cobbled slope to Place du Bourg-de-Four. Nothing took our fancy there so we carried on. I remember spotting a steak restaurant on the way to Cathédrale Saint-Pierre, so went to investigate.
Au Carnivore is situated on Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville. If looks small from the outside but is quite deceptive as it’s on more than one floor. There used to be also an outdoor area dining some steps. We chose to eat inside due to the inclement weather. The restaurant is typically French decor and had exactly what we wanted in the menu: fillet steak. We chose a local merlot to go with our steak so it was all perfect. We also had dessert (crème brûlée) which was delicious too.
After eating we went back to the hotel for a quick drink and then headed out to the jet d’eau for a walk. We wanted to see if it had changed colour from last night’s blue. It had, it was a kind of pale red/pink colour. We could get quite close to it because of the wind direction but we weren’t crazy enough to walk through the mist to the jetty at the end.
After that, and a total of more than 17,700 steps for the day, it was time for bed.
jctraveller 
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