Day Five France - Annecy

Today is Friday Sept 30.  Day five of our visit to France.  We still in our very nice hotel in the hills above Cruseilles.  At 9:00am, we had breakfast in their special room for breakfast.  Again, another special room in the hotel for a specialized use.  This one is for breakfast.  They have several dining rooms, a library and a chapel. 

We had a most decadent breakfast of croissants, rolls, chocolate cake, cheeses, deli meats, yogurt, coffee and hot chocolate.  Here is a picture of the breakfast room.   

Now we’re on the way to Val d’ Arly and Albertville to take a picture of the Arly river for one of Mary’s long-time close friends named Arly.  Arly mentioned the river and Mary offered to get the picture.  Albertville is the home of one of the previous winter Olympics.  On the way, we passed through a wonderful little town called Thones.  All of this is on the way to Geneva.  As we increase in altitude and get closer to Switzerland, you really begin to see the Swiss influence in the buildings, chalets and architecture.  Here are pictures of this part of the trip along with pictures of the Arly river for Arly. 

Francine, our Garmin Nuvi GPS was not a good girl today.  She did not see many of the roundabouts along the way.  Also, we traveled to Albertville from a slightly different direction than the main highway between Annecy and Albertville.  The roads were more narrow.  We got to one place where there was a detour.  As we begin taking the detour, we went the wrong way.  Of course, Francine re-calculated.  One thing we found out about being in the French Alps is don’t follow the re-calcs.  Turn around and make it right.  As I’ve said before, Francine seems to know every road and dirt path in the entire area.  By accepting the re-calculations, it looked like we were going to go over the mountain in an unpaved road.  Looking at our arrival time, we increased by an hour.  Big mistake.  We were actually on a road where we should have had a 4-wheel drive vehicle.  We did turn around and corrected our original mistake.  There were people living up that high and the scenery was spectacular but it was stupid not to turn around.  It was OK after that.  Here’s one picture of the road we were on plus a picture of the very nice cow in her best picture pose. 

4-Wheel Drive Road Following GPS Instructions

I'm Ready For My Closeup Mr. DeMille

The trip back down to Annecy from Albertville was uneventful.  Lots of parking in Annecy.  It’s all paid parking but there are 3-4 nice lots.  We parked in the Central Ville parking lot which is 2 blocks from the old town and the very scenic canals, hotels and shops.  Very touristy, however.  Here are pictures. 

Lake Annecy

Annecy Canal Bridge

Other Pictures of Annecy

At 5:30pm we began looking for a place for dinner.  We looked in the Rick Steves book and found a couple of possibilities nearby.  Surprise!.  The restaurants are closed in the afternoon and don’t open until 7:00pm.  Bummer.  We thought for a bit and decided to take a drive tour around the far end of Lake Annecy and find a nice restaurant up the road.  This turned out to be a great move.  Our Frommer’s book had a couple of suggestions so off we went to Talloires which was about 30 minutes up the road.  We arrived at the La Villa des Fluers restaurant about 7:00pm.  Fancy that.  They were just opening for dinner.  The restaurant had the most beautiful dining room that we have yet been in since our visit to France.  The dining room looked out onto Lake Annecy.  The food was better than anything we could have had in touristy Annecy and the cost was about the same.  What a treat.  Here are pictures. 

Back to the Chateau de Avenieres in the hills above Cruseilles for our last night there.  We arrived just after 9:00pm.  As we entered the hotel, we observed the cheese tray just outside the dining room.  Never have we seen such a display of French cheese.  Awesome.  We asked for the list but the head server smiled and pointed to his head which indicated where this great library of intellectual property was located.  Here’s a picture. 

Mary became interested in desert.  She really liked mine from the previous evening and asked if she could have one delivered to our room.  The head server again smiled and said “of course Madamme”.  So here is a picture of Mary in our room having desert.