Annecy

We had a deserved lie in this morning. I was looking forward to our wee road trip to Annacy today, Chris had been before and had vowed to return. He described it as being like Venice, only smaller. We packed up a small picnic lunch of red wine, Bree, fruit and a baguette before venturing out into France.

We headed North West before turning South before reaching Geneva. After about an hour of driving in the glaring sun we reached Lake Annacy, just south of the town itself. We parked in a carpark and crossed the road to the grassy park that flanked the water. It was very hot by now so we all went for a dip in the lake after having a quick bite to eat. It felt uncomfortable just lazing around and I felt a pang of guilt doing so. However, I put up with it as I lay in the sun, half dosing and drying. Being a Sunday, it seemed that the whole town was out. It felt much more like a seaside beach than an Alpine lake. 

We hung around for a few hours, letting the sun re-energise us. A great crested grebe sauntered past, elegantly stretching its neck and slipping under the water gracefully in pursuit of some unfortunate fish. 

We then wandered into town, trying to find the old section which hosted an ancient bastille. The first sight of the old town was a bit of street entertainment. Two incredibly muscular female acrobats performed their street act in a large circle of spectators. They balanced and flipped onto each other, showing amazing muscular control and balance. Then a bloke popped up and did some balancing on a stick and we lost interest. 

A fantastically clear and wide river ran through the centre of the town, old cobbled alleys criss-crossed the streets, spanning the river with a myriad of small bridges. The prison sat centrally, growing out of the water, its strange to think that this place of imprisonment was once a place to be avoided at all costs. Now it was a major attraction, generating a whole and healthy tourist trade for a town with little else apart from an attractive lake. 

Cafe’s and restaurants lined the narrow pathways than were now drenched with tourists. Every building had rustic exterior shutters on their pastel coloured plastered fascia’s. Old brown dead ivy hung dry from the walls dropping leaves onto the green surface water. A swan stood out of the water on one foot, preening itself. We wandered under a myriad of archways and passed a host of side vendors selling all sorts of produce before stopping for a beer on a wide pont. 

You couldn’t help feeling charmed by this place, especially after the commercial nature of Chamonix. We had to get back to Chamonix by 6pm in order to return the car, otherwise we would be driving without insurance. 

Back at Chamonix, Steve and Chris dropped the car off while I carried the bag back up to the apartment. We had arranged to meet in La Boccalatte. They had trouble parking so I sat there for around an hour, drinking beer and deciphering the menu. It turns out the Boccalatte was an Italian alpinist from the turn of the century who pioneered several routes before dying in a rockfall in 1936.

The others arrived and we ate a hearty meal, Steve bought a bottle of red wine for wuppance ha’penny for after the huge packing mountain we had to summit this evening. 

At the flat we got stuck into organising an environment that hadn’t been tidied in 9 days into a few small rucksacks. I had managed to accumulate two extra rucksacks and climbing harnesses for Jacob and Aaron and a cuckoo clock. Somehow, after 2 hours, I managed to get everything tucked and squeezed in. We sat listening to Nina Simone and sipping really good red wine. We watched the sun suck Mont Blanc slowly into darkness. Satellites traced across the sky and the night became a pin-pricked dark veil.