How Could You Not Fall In Love With Annecy?

Traveling, it leaves you speechless then turns you into to a storyteller.

Annecy, located in the centre of France, Italy and Switzerland and had gone through the Roman Empire, The Count of Genèva, House of Savory, Kingdom of Sardinia and then, France. She is also surrounded by two rivers, the Canal du Thiou and Canal du Vassé. Her multicultural appearance and the geography, make Annecy becomes the Venice of Alps.

Stepping out from the station in the morning, it wasn’t as crowded as other station in Lyon, Paris or other countries, yet, it wasn’t deserted. The whole atmosphere just made me feel so relaxed that I could spend a whole day just sitting anywhere, doing nothing but daydreaming.

Walking through blocks, my breath was started taken away by this quiet and pretty little town. Even though I hadn’t arrived at those famous sights, the alleys already amazed me a lot! The beauty of Annecy isn’t created by the modern government, they are legacies left by forefathers.

Without serious industrial pollution, river water of Annecy is so clean and green that you can always see the reflections of the town. What really surprises me these days is that there are so many trees in the cities of France; furthermore, passing through blocks, we can always find parks to spend our leisure time, not to mention a gorgeous town like Annecy! Green water matched with clear blue sky and wonderful environment, a fresh atmosphere was created around us.

Since there must be a lot of travelling blog and professional travel guides sharing the must-go sights of Annecy, like Palais de l’île, (even though it was on its repairing construction, the view was still so beautiful.)

and Cathédrale Saint-Pierre you can find all over the internet, I won’t focus on introducing them but only photos here.

The best part of travelling isn’t just about taking photos in the main street, what I also really enjoying doing is to exploring from alleys to alleys, In the alleys, I can find stores, pedestrians, animals or even a small decoration or graffiti that interest me.

When I was walking in the alley, an interesting store just shined bright in the shadow, Blonc du Nil, a clothing store selling white shirts which were full of elders with silver-white hair. I guess it’s due to the climate and their bright sunshine, there will be some shops selling clothing without any colours but plain white in vacation resorts. This reminded me of the last time I went to Provence, there was also a street full of white clothing, and it felt like being in heaven, softly surrounded by clouds.

In order to avoid tons of tourists, we decided to have our lunch a little bit early. Here at La Bastille, we got a perfect seat for watching the beautiful view and swans while eating. It was also so lucky that this side of the restaurant wasn’t directly exposed to the sun at noon.

The famous dishes around this region are related to CHEESE. I ordered a cheese fountain, ‘guess there were at least 3 kinds of cheeses in it, and added with some tipple, when the server served us, the strong smell of cheese and wine struck my face, made me hungrier than ever. Together with potato slices, this dish had the densest mouthfeel of the world.

A summer trip wouldn’t be completed without grabbing a cup of ice cream. I’ve seen about 3-4 ice cream shops lined up with millions of people; however, a quiet shop at the end of the road caught my eyes. Chez Poustache wasn’t as crowded as all the other ice cream shop in the front, but its quality wasn’t inferior to them.

For an ice cream shop, I think it was totally an amazing idea to put entities on the top of each flavour, like real Oreo, Lotus cookies, pineapple or macarons, for a foreigner like me, even though I can communicate in French, reading menus and imagining the flavours still happens to be a difficult thing to me, with the “instructions” like that, me and my brother could easily link that flavour of ice cream to desserts we’ve actually been familiar with.

The owner of this shop was also a nice and chatty young man. We’d noticed one thing: it seemed like the ice cream storage case was fixed in the shop, how could the shop survive during winter if they only sell ice cream? The answer of the owner truly shocked me, “I’ll just go on vacation for half a year! It’s so tired, you know lol.” This will never gonna happen in Taiwan, our ice cream shop sells ice cream in the summer, of course, but, when winter’s coming, they’ll clean up their ice cream and change into hot desserts, like sweet rice flour dumpling（湯圓）. Having a vacation for half a year for workers? Um um, that’s not Taiwan.

So that was the other thing French impressed me, they won’t work to death, nevertheless, they still live happily.

After a satisfying lunch and dessert, we took our huge stomachs on a walk in order to digest. We found a route up to someplace higher since there was still 1 hour from our boat trip around the lake; I decided to go for a look.

On our way, there were only a few passengers; it was so silent compared to the town down there, even though we were still in just a few steps from it. On top of the road, there was a wide opening area enclose by neighbourhoods. One thing special was that, on our left-hand side, stood a huge castle gate; it was a museum of The Castle of Annecy. Although my brother and I wanted to go for a look, we both knew that not spending at least 2 hours in the museum, we wouldn’t give up discovering every detail on each floor. Hence, we made a promise that I’ll come back in the winter, to help him take a look for all the treasures in this castle museum.

As we walked down the route, it was like coming back down to earth; there were people all over the sidewalk again. We went back to the port by strolling in the back street. Watching all those flowers in Annecy, well, not only here but every city I went to France, how could they grow so well? It was like they can bloom and grow forever!.

During our walk in the backstreet, I found a shop, EXTRAVACANTA selling century-like outfits. This kind of style was my favourite; I was in love with gothic, Lolita and splendid styles- until I finally realized what matters a lot with the outfits we wear, our face shape. What a sad history of mine.

Coming back to the centre of Annecy, waiting for our time to be on board, the lake was already so beautiful standing on the shore.

As we were having our boat tour on La Belle Etoile, all I could focus on was the clear sky clean lake water; I could see our boat in the reflection. Around us, there were full of vacationers on their yacht, and women wearing bikini had a sunbath on it, how I wish that was me, lots of youths were playing windsurfing that I’ve always wanted to try, too. While I zoomed in the camera to the mountain far away from us, there were also people playing hand gliding! What a relaxing and playful town Annecy is.

According to the guide, besides the lake there were lots of private beaches; I saw one, lain with a bunch of youths wearing swimwears, and their yachts beside them.

On our way back to the port, with the pleasant wind and the boat softly moving back to the port, I felt into a comfortable sleep in the last 15 minutes…

Under the fine weather, even animals were having a great time here, look how satisfied when that golden retriever jumped into the cozy lake! I couldn’t resist its cuteness!

Still, every fairytale has their ending; I still needed to face the truth that it was the time for me to leave this paradise; let 2 piano guys who were playing joyful notes brought my journey in Annecy to a perfect ending.