Lake Annecy

Friday 12^th July Chamonix to Lake Annecy

The mountains and Mont Blanc were looking beautiful in the morning sun as we said goodbye to Sarah and Damien (collecting water from them first). It was a pity we could not stay in Chamonix longer but we could see it would be a good day to be driving through the mountains. We left Chamonix in the direction of Les Houches with Mt. Blanc on our left hand side. We continued on a minor road to St Gervais and then to Megeve where Jacqui had skied many years ago. From there we continued to Flumet where we turned right which took us onto the D909 and into the Haute Savoie Mountains. We stopped at the top of one of the mountain passes: the Col. Des Aravis and then it was downhill all the way to La Clusaz. This was a beautiful area and one that the Tour de France would be passing through in a few days time.

Eventually we could see lake Annecy in the distance. We stopped at Veyvier and caught the Tourist information office just before it closed. They gave us local maps and details of campsites that were on the water’s edge. The first campsite we went to had no internet facilities so we continued to Angon just outside of Talloires.

It is difficult to describe the beauty of this lake. It is an amazing blue colour and is surrounded by mountains. Over the next couple of days we enjoyed watching the paragliders float down from the top as well as watching all  the water activities.  Once we were settled we pumped up the kayak and had a good paddle around the lake admiring the waterside properties.

The evening was a glorious balmy one and we sat outside until it had been dark for some time. We chatted to our neighbours who were an English couple who were in France visiting their daughter who was a chalet hostess.   Now that the ski season is over her daughter is busy with folk who travel into the area for mountain biking.

Saturday 13^th July Lake Annecy

Jacqui had planned to do some work this morning including a skpye call with Lizzie. The signal was not brilliant but we coped. Before we had lunch we cycled into Talloires to get some food including some sausages to BBQ that evening. It was another very hot day and it was a pleasure to get back into the kayak and onto the lake with its cooling water. With work out of the way we had a very relaxing day. We played boule in the evening which Mike won and then we played crib with Mike winning again. We had our BBQ and at 10pm we went down to the water’s edge to watch some distant fireworks.  It is Bastille Day tomorrow and some of the lakeside villages chose to have their fireworks a day early so as not to compete with Annecy.

Sunday 14^th Annecy

It had been our original intention to leave the area today but as it was Bastille Day we decided to join in the celebrations in Annecy. We left the campsite hoping to find somewhere we could park overnight further up the lake. Annecy was extremely busy. All the car parks were full. We found a road that had a ‘no waiting’ sign for the summer period for camper vans but as there were already four vans parked there we decided it was not being enforced today.

After our lunch we took the bikes off the van and cycled around the top end of the lake and into the old centre of Annecy. It was very pretty but absolutely crawling with people. We are not used to this! We identified where the firework display would be and then continued our cycle around the lake to Sevrier. Here we stopped for an expensive ice cream and to cool off by the lake.
 We got back to a very hot van about 5 pm. After a salad supper we went back out to enjoy the festivities. Bars had music playing, people were dancing but best of all was ’tribe percussion’ a drumming band who were marching and playing all around the park.

At about 10.15pm there was a fabulous firework display. The fireworks were let off from floating pontoons in the lake and were excellent. After that we had a final walk around the area before heading back. The roads were completely grid locked as there had been tens of thousands of people watching the fireworks and we were glad we had made the decision to stay in Annecy overnight.