Boondock Puffins

What can you do in France if it’s been a long work week?

One idea is to head for a quick break to Annecy, the well-known and beautiful alpine, lakeside town in the south east of France. Famed for it’s cobbled streets and quintessentially French old town, it’s an ideal escape.

To see a full list of hotels in Annecy, click here!

We arrived at midday (having stayed with friends in Courcheval the night before) and parked in Parking Post (this only cost us €4.20 for several hours – compared to other French parking, this is so cheap!).

Being plan-less, we began to relax with a wander around in many (many) circles – the vielle ville and it’s canals are indeed picturesque, but not huge and so it’s quite easy to see much of this very quickly. Take your time and enjoy absorbing the architecture with it’s mix of arches, pastel colours and winding cobbles next to the waterways. On a Sunday, there’s also a market on which adds to the colour (and creates a certain amount of chaos).

As it started to drizzle, we halted our meanderings around the lake and pondered lunch options. Being on a fairly small budget, we found our options a little limited, but eventually got lunch from a bagel place (aptly named ‘Bagel Corner’ in Centre Bonlieu. One “Scandinavian” bagel – salmon, cream cheese and avo, one “manhattan” bagel – pastrami, pickles and cheese. Both were awesome. We took it in a dodgy looking brown paper bag, together with a beer and sat on the edge of the lake (watching the ominous clouds but enjoying sunshine). If you ever find yourself sitting on the edge of the park (Le Paquier d’Annecy) watch out for the swans who are very bold in this section – I assume from being used to tourists dropping sandwich crusts for them.

Post lunch, we headed back through the old town and moved car to our hotel (Hotel Allobroges – book it here!) – it had super parking in a little underground garage in which you get your own secure garage, complete with door remote. It was very safe and we would highly recommend it. I would also note that the receptionists were incredibly friendly and helpful – we had to ask to stay in our room a bit later as I had an interview online and they were entirely happy to accommodate that.

After we had dropped our things off and sat to enjoy a cup of tea in our room, we went to hunt for places for supper. We ultimately ended up at the Saint Maurice Brasserie. Given the vast choice in Annecy for restaurants, this was a decision made solely on convenience and cost (many restaurants here are those that show up on Google/TripAdvisor as “€€€-€€€€” which always made us nervous!). In total we spent about €70 for everything which included two amazing main courses, huge puddings, and a pichet of house white (€10 for 50cl!). With very full tummies and very happy hearts, we loafed back to our hotel room and crashed.

The following morning we got up at 5.45pm to take go to admire the sunrise which unfortunately turned out to be a very cloudy one… more like the sun was peering at us through a net curtain than the bright clear day that we’d been hoping for! Nevertheless, we headed out for a run before an ultra productive day. We had many meetings online in our hotel room (which, as I said, the receptionists were entirely happy to accommodate). Finally it was time for breakfast.

If you find yourself in Annecy without a breakfast plan, let me suggest to you that you head over to the Haven Cafe – a cafe that is apparently founded upon the principles of “Australian brunch and coffee shops”. While we’ve never experienced what this might be like, it certainly makes us look forward to prospective life in Australia! We shared an “Aussie Eggs Benedict” with added bacon – the first good bacon we’ve had in France!- and two flat whites, (also the first really good coffee we’ve had here…), we would absolutely recommend this cafe! If you end up heading in and feeling not quite cool enough to be there, don’t stress. We had the same and still enjoyed ourselves… and sitting outside helps too!!

Accepting that we needed to begin our journey home to Tignes, we left Annecy mid-morning. On our way home, we stopped at Lac du Bourget (on which lies Aix-les-Bains, although we didn’t make it quite to the town), and then Aiguebelette – a very picturesque and incredibly still lake (which used to hold rowing events). We stopped here to eat some salami and chips for an ever balanced meal, before resigning ourselves to our fate of returning to work.

Hopping in the trusty Yeti, we headed back up to the mountains, back to snow that is resolutely not leaving, and reflected that Annecy really does make for an ideal short-weekend escape.