Day 25: Beautiful Annecy

Today we were treated to, wait, yes you guessed it, another town market!!!! The prices of the goods here seemed a little more expensive than the one in Uzès; perhaps this place is a bit more touristy and gets a lot more touristy French visitors, given that it is only 3 hours away by fast train from Paris.

Walking through the market I was offered some saucisse, which I of course tried.  The girl had very little English, and so couldn’t answer any of the questions I had.  I tried the blueberry, spicy and traditional. But found them all pretty bland, so had to politely decline buying any.  But at least I know what those mouldy looking things are now and they can be eaten as is without cooking.

At another stall I was offered some tapenade, an olive based type of dip.  I tried a few and the fig one was amazing so I bought that.  You actually use the supplied spoon to place as much as you want in a tub, which you then have weighed and pay for, too easy.
By the river we found a nice little coffee shop, and had grande café au lait, which were huge and very good.  It’s the only coffee that you can order and have a reasonable degree of confidence on what you will actually get served, and they’ve usually been very good wherever we have had them. I also ordered a baguette and almond croissant, and on paying was asked by the girl something which I did not understand at all.  And it seemed important, as the transaction wasn’t going any further till I answered.  :-/ I said I couldn’t understand, but she had no English either.  Then another customer kindly translated that she was asking if the croissant was to have in or take away: “enporter sil vous plais.”
It was very rainy and overcast as we walked to the tourist office to get some internet to check the weather forecast.  We’d wanted to do one of the boat cruises around the lake, but not if it was going to be bucketing rain the whole trip. The weather forecast was basically light rain all day, however as we neared the port, there was a good sized break of sunshine so we decided to do the cruise and take the chance.

We toured around the lake with a French commentary that made no sense, but luckily they had supplied a brief English paper on the main sites of the lake.  The scenery was superb, and the weather thankfully held off til we were only 10 minutes from Annecy, so the timing was perfect.

Oh, and a family on the boat had brought their dog, which reminds me to mention about the French and their dogs.  They love them.  Their dog is like a member of the family.  They take them on boat trips.  They take them into restaurants.  They sit in bars with them on their laps.  How awesome is that!
Back on solid land we walked around town some more, visiting the château where there were ruins of the old city wall beneath the square, and where they also uncovered the old town cemetery during cleanup works. I then did one of the tourist walks up the river past the sites of old town mills and textile factories and sheds where the women of the past used to wash the clothes in the river. It rained down pretty hard as I returned, so I caught up on some more blogging while drying out in the apartment before dinner.

A cello!

Dinner tonight was at a restaurant that Pascal had recommended; La Frite, where they served traditional Savoyarde food.  I chose the cheese fondue, having no idea what I was ordering or how to eat it.  Somehow I missed the cheese fondue craze in Australia in the ‘70’s.
I ordered a beautiful Kir, and asked for recommendations on which fondue to have, and was pointed to the Fondue Savoyarde, which was really nice.  But that was a lot of cheese and bread!  Like a bucket of bread!!

I skipped the crème brûlèe dessert, since they didn’t have one, and went for a beautiful framboise glace with framboise liqueur.

Tonight was not a good night for sleeping.  I didn’t get into bed till about 12:30 as it was, and there was some party or celebration going on outside.  Then the phone went off at 3:30am, and again at 6:00am, shortly followed by the garbage trucks. Gah!

More pics!