The life and times of:: Annecy

From Marie’s parents place we scooted back to Paris and took our first high speed train to Annecy. I booked all the TGV trains about 2 months ago. If you buy on the day the trains are quite pricey. On this trip alone I saved about €80. On the other hand the tickets are non-transferable, so we were about 2 hours early to the train station so we didn’t miss it (I was originally planning on 3 hours but this seemed excessive even for me).

There are lots of cute little villages clustered around a church spire and surrounded by fields travelling down to Annecy, all very quaint and picturesque. Annecy itself has several canals and this thing (Palais de I'Isle) sitting in the middle of one (this might also be the most photographed spot in the region):

I was keen on cycling round the lake, so we hired some bikes and set off in one direction. I sort of assumed the bike paths went around the lake, but they didn’t. At one point Daniel said “I think we have left the lake behind” and so we turned around and tried to find it again. The bike paths are beautiful. I would looooooooove to have something similar around Rotorua. Even on clanky, rattley bikes with slowly dropping seats and rubbing chains, it is a smooth, lovely ride. It was quite a good way to get used to the traffic as well. I have been having issues with which way to look when crossing the road. On the way back we rested our weary behinds and stopped at a random restaurant and had a Menu du jour: salade, boulette de boeuf, and fromage (or dessert). I am confused why the French are generally quite slim. The food was awesome and we rolled out after 2 hours feeling quite sleepy.

We then followed the bike path as far as we could in the other direction. It was quite cold in the morning, despite having a clear sky, but it warmed up to a pretty hot day (shame on me for forgetting sunscreen, first and last time I say). We had to stop lots for weary bellies and bums but it was a pretty awesome day.