Annecy and Chambery

Fitful night’s sleep and no early morning start, so eventually headed to breakfast after 8. This is our least favourite hotel to date as we clearly have come to expect more than a basic 3 stars from Insight Tours. However it is still all good and I’m looking forward to today’s itinerary. At breakfast we are joined by Steve and Sue who are from Lobethal, and Steve is ex SAPOL! Thought I recognised his face when I first saw him. anyway, a very pleasant chatty breakfast, back to rooms to pack suitcases and then time for a read and relax til 10.30 when we head off in perfect conditions. Once again the view from our room is picture perfect.

We have been so very lucky with the weather, so hope our luck holds. As we head out from a Chaminox the scenery takes your breath away everywhere you look and although my little camera is trying hard, my photos just can’t do the scenes justic.





We arrive in Annecy which is a lovely lakeside town between a lake and mountains. It is a summer getaway for both French and Swiss locals.



Much of the ‘oldest’ part of the city has a waterway through it with a tiny island in the middle that a small castle was built in.


The castle has been used for all sorts of things over the ages, including a prison that housed two prisoners! Today you can have a look through it but it is is more of an art gallery than an historical museum. Because of the canals criss-crossing through the Old Town and little bridges over them, this area is aptly named Little Venice.

Just lovely. We have a wander around and as it is midday, decide that it must be lunch time so decide on Milton Pub Brasserie for our lunch and have the special of the day which I correctly translate from French to roast chicken and chips with garden salad. It was lovely! Jo did well ordering the white wine for us. A Canadian woman, Ann, who is on our tour had joined us and although she didn’t want anything to eat, she was more than happy to share the wine with us.


After lunch we were going to keep having a bit of a wander but as a number of the stores had closed for their lunch, we decided to do a one hour boat cruise on the lake. The weather was perfect for it but the boat was full so you couldn’t get up and move around to get the best views, plus the commentary was only in French so we had no idea of what was being pointed out or explained to us. To that end it was an okay way to pass an hour on such a lovely day but I would not recommend it to anyone to do.

But as soon as the boat docked we were back to our coach and then on to our destination for the evening at Chambery. It only took a bit under an hour but on the way Laura treated us all to a macaron, which was very yummy. Keep seeing the cutest little police cars all over the place. Also love that the police stations are called ‘Hotel de Police’! Don’t you love it?

We are very happy with our room as for the first time on this trip we have a walk in shower. Hip hip hooray! Haven’t used it yet to work out how hard it is to master the various knobs, taps and dials but anything has to be better than some of the engineering impossibilities we have had to deal with to date. Mind you, yet again we have a room where the air conditioning doesn’t work unless you want heat! We have been told by staff that the a/c does not get turned on until 1 May... no matter the weather or requests of staff, and this is a Mercure hotel!
Dinner tonight is at a nearby restaurant that we have a 10 minute walk to. We have time for our own little happy hour in our room courtesy of the wine we bought at the Fixin vineyard vist. It is so nice to then be outside in fresh air for our walk to the restaurant which is called Le Bistrot. Along the way we pass the Elephant fountain. Apparently it is quite famous as a tribute to a local family that were furriers, and obviously well to do. The son went to India which had been the father’s dream to bring back all the highly sought furs and hides, or at least that’s something like the story goes. Never did work out what the elephants had to do with it all though. (You will have to check this post again tomorrow if you want to see photos of it, as I’ve run out of time for anymore photo downloading before we away to our coach.)
And as a reward for your patience, if you are now re-reading this post you get a shot of the fountain in daylight on our way to the restaurant, and a second night shot from our return to the hotel!

The menu is a ‘farm to table’ one so our starter is a chicken terrine from a farm in Yenne. There was meant to be fresh salad vegetables with it but instead there was a half piece of toast and some curly leaf lettuce. As I figured the terrine looked too much like a thick pate, I was glad to hand mine over to J. Main course was from three choices and I had a fillet of Lavaretwhich is fish, that was served on rice. Dessert was really good as I had cottage cheese with red fruit coulis poured over it. Plus through all the courses we had red and white wine supplied. Our table of six consisted of J, me Terry and Deb (who I now remember are from Winnipeg) Ann who had lunch with us today and Anna who is an elderly Canadian lady who requires a walking stick to get sound as she is quite slow, hence she came to dinner in a taxi) and is also quite deaf, but quietly spoken. She is really nice and very ‘proper’ but as I was sitting opposite her at the end of our table I had to keep repeating table talk to her as she couldn’t hear it. It felt like being back at work dealing with some of my ‘kittens’! But it was no problem at all and she was appreciative.
A very pleasant evening and a leisurely wander back to our hotel where we headed for our room. Spent the night opening the window to let cool air in, and closing the window to drown out all the street noise!