You Go Nate!

Little Town...
It's a Quiet Village...
Every Day, Like the One Before...

On Friday (the 9th) we went for one more little excursion.

Joseph, Emily, Megan, and I drove to the town of Annecy, which sits on Lake Annecy at the foot of the Rhône Alps.

It was a nice sunny day, but there was a little bit of haze over the lake...



Lake Annecy is long but not terribly wide across...




Annecy itself is a picture-perfect French town. Colorful buildings, canals, crêperies, and restaurants make up the quaint old town, towered over by a medieval château...










The most famous building of Annecy is the Palais de l'Isle. This structure, built in the 12th century, has been an administration building, a courthouse, a mint, a jail, and a museum...




We walked the streets, explored side-alleys, and enjoyed the zero crowd of January...
















For lunch we stopped in a little restaurant where I ordered a local Savoy specialty: Tartiflette. This is a dish of potatoes and bits of bacon topped by a local cheese. There were several different varieties of tartiflettes to choose from, each with something different added inside. I couldn't pass up the tartiflette d'escargot. So that's what I ate.

I also got to try some ratatouille for the first time. It was excellent. Here's the tartiflette with pieces of escargot, and the ratatouille on the right...




After lunch we did some more exploring...




Megan found a fascinating fountain...




We found a nice little crêperie and stopped in for some crêpes...




We then headed back to the car. The haze was starting to clear up and we decided to drive a bit around the lake...










We found a cool château in the village of Duingt (try pronouncing that in French!) built on a small peninsula on the lake...



It had a magnificent backdrop...




C'est la vie...




We drove home and enjoyed relaxing on Friday evening and all of Saturday. We celebrated Joseph's birthday again and before I knew it, we were packing up the car getting ready to depart on Sunday morning.

We left early and drove the length of Switzerland back towards Munich. I slept through most of Switzerland, but as we crossed into Austria and then Germany we found the landscape covered in a frozen white layer shining in the sun.




The drive from Geneva to Munich was about six hours and so we got back around noon. It was nice to be back in my apartment and sleeping in my own bed again, but I was grateful to have had such a fun and interesting three-week holiday.

With the winter weather, and the need to be conservative with my means, it might be a while before I take my next trip... but one never knows, does one?

Meanwhile... Munich's still alive and kicking...

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