French Spring in Annecy!
French spring in Annecy!
Now we will go to an unusually beautiful French city. This city is many times more beautiful than Paris and will take an honorable third place in our European ranking after the Norwegian fjords and the Italian Garda, meet the opening of 2019 - Annecy!
A couple of years ago, there was a transfer from Orel and Reshka - “Around M”. We watched just a couple of episodes and abandoned it, but one of the cities that the heroine visited, probably, didn’t get out of my head for a year. This city promises to be interesting in all respects. I found that old show, remembered the name and was very happy that it was very easy to get to the city at low-cost rates. The point is small, take tickets and wait a year before departure!
It's good that a year ago we scored low-cost tickets in the same way,
so the wait was pretty boring. At first, we enjoyed a million tastes of Georgian cuisine, conquered the Carpathian peaks with Misha, then we struggled with the harsh Montenegrin weather and canceled flights, arranged a winter in the middle of summer on the Norwegian fjords, explored all the corners and parks of Barcelona, walked around ancient Tallinn, rode bicycles around the districts of the Finnish capital, studied in detail all the fish of the Red Sea, studied the parks of Zhytomyr, conquered unforgettable Istanbul for the sixth time, studied animals in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha of Belarus, felt the spirit of independence in Copenhagen Christiania, I flew on a sled from the Alpine mountains, then we made our way through dangerous, but the beautiful jungles of the Dominican Republic and met spring in Cyprus. So we passed the time before the trip))) The heroine Dasha laid all the above routes.
Annecy
We landed at the Geneva airport.
Despite the terrible prices in Switzerland, we managed to eat at the airport for 14 euros for two, in a supermarket. We even relaxed, naively thinking that in Switzerland everything would not be as bad with prices as we were told. But in fact, it was some mystically cheap airport. We even dined at the airport on the last day, because it is cheaper than in Geneva))) But this price resonance awaits us at the end, now we are full sat in the flixbus and went straight to French Annecy. The road from the airport takes an hour and 20 minutes, tickets for a day flight cost 8 euros. Behind the bus it was drizzling and a cold wind was brutal. The weather forecast assured us that it would be clear in an hour. We arrived in the city, while walking to the hotel, we were cold and wet to the skin. Our short trip seemed to be in jeopardy. But Google-weather firmly stood its ground, they say now it will become clear. Checking into the apartment was a little difficult,
In fact, it is accurate to the minute. The forecast showed updates every hour, and we left exactly at 16:00. It seems the trip is saved, go explore the city! The old city is full of flowers, old buildings, every street radiates romance. Everywhere there are flower beds of tulips, beautifully planted among small flowers of the same color.
A canal runs through the whole city. Channel modicum and one, but what! Ancient bridges connect the halves of the city, Chateau de l'Isle, built right in the center of the canal, cuts it into two parts. The singing of nightingales mixed with the sun's rays spread love and joy to every corner. A very romantic atmosphere, if you want to make a fail-safe proposal - do it in sunny Annecy. The old town is quite small. But the beauty is that in addition to the old city, the modern part is also perfectly licked. Everything beautiful, blooming,
neat little streets, and if you walk along the canal, you can wander into the suburban forests.
The water in the canal gives off blue, as if in exotic Asian rivers. Very beautiful. Much more beautiful than we imagined this amazing city. But even all this beauty is just a cake, and the cherry is Lake Annecy. This is a giant lake surrounded by high alpine snow-capped mountains. Moreover, the sizes of the mountains are varied, everyone can find the height of the mountain to their liking. Small towns are located along the lake, with a total length of 42 km in a circle, the towns in themselves also hide their beauty, which needs to be carefully explored. And I remind you that the singing of birds here from early morning until late evening without stopping.
And let's finally complete the picture with locks. We saw at least five castles in and around Annecy,
moreover, the castles look really cool, such as real old castles should be. And in the bus or even walking distance, high and powerful waterfalls and spacious canyons lurk. Such sights can be reached in 40 minutes by bus, or you can walk about six kilometers through parks, forests and fields blooming with yellow flowers. Here you choose yourself. But if such walks are not for you, then you can simply go on a boat cruise on the lake. How do you like the town? ) I haven’t talked about the wild deer in the forest yet. And the best part is that round-trip tickets from Kyiv cost about 2000 UAH per person round-trip, including a round-trip bus from Geneva) But for a year)
We were confused, we did not know where to start the route. We started walking along the right side of the lake. But at the exit from the city, an excellent park was waiting for us.
You can’t just take and miss the excellent park! The park is also impressive. Centuries-old thick trees grow in the park and entire hostels are built from birdhouses. We still managed to overcome ourselves and get out of the beautiful park. I just wanted to take the lake and go around in a circle, despite the road of 42 km. Shortly after the park, a blooming and juicy sakura was waiting for us.
After the rain, the sakura was juicy in the truest sense of the word, I, frankly, could not resist and bit off a piece of flowering. And it was gorgeous, as if I had bitten a piece of savory watermelon, petals filled my whole mouth. Sakura coordinates
In addition to sakura, along the route we came across magnolias, dark red maples, lilac-colored trees and a bunch of living creatures. In addition to graceful swans, various exotic waterfowl.
One of the birds sat on the pebbles and counted five seconds each, making sounds with its beak like a Soviet alarm clock. The more you walk, the more the lake turns and opens up more and more mountain views.
Unearthly beauty. One problem with all this, buses run every hour and a half and finish walking early enough. When we realized that we were feeling a little tired and we had to return, the gps showed us the route of 8 km. The last bus left half an hour ago. Uber came to the rescue. For 12 euros, a car came for us from the city and took us back. While the car was following us, we managed to buy a cheese mini-pizza in a country bakery. It’s like all the best cheeses in the world have been put into this pizza)
The city at night was as beautiful as it was in the sun, now the streets are lit with a warm orange light, the tables of all the restaurants are crowded,
everyone is eating and talking. It’s true that the rain is gathering again, and the legs are already buzzing. It seems that we didn’t go much today, but the fact of the flight and moving in the bus affects. The weather says it will rain tomorrow morning! But at 6 am it's clear. Ehhh... we set the alarm for half past six, which means) Rain is predicted from 11:00 so that we will have as much as 5 hours left!
From the early morning, we moved from the hotel to the bus and went to the Roc de Chè re park. It took about an hour to drive, just enough to watch the dreams. With buses to Annecy, you need to be careful, on the very first day at the bus station, take brochures with the schedule from the drivers. Since if you miss your bus, the next one will have to wait an hour and a half.
Roc de Chere Park
The driver dropped us off near a mountain park, I would really call it more of a forest. There were surveys on the map, we slowly walked towards them. Blue and sunny skies
songbirds and clean mountain air. And even the moon! True, the moon was only in my eyes, the body apparently was acclimatizing. I had to lie down on the pebbles for 10 minutes and continued on our way. We found an overview with a beautiful view. We were very happy, but a local resident doing his morning run told us to go 50 meters to the right to a really cool viewpoint. Despite the fact that the views from the first survey were simply magnificent, then from the next one - the most magnificent multiplied by two. A lake, mountain peaks, an island with a castle on the lake, if you look to the right towards the high mountains, you can see another castle, but already in the mountains, how can such beauty exist! ?
Why have we never heard of this city and its environs before? But nothing, now Andrey and Dasha have taken up the matter, now everyone will know about Annecy! Is it worth it to say
that after our return, our parents immediately took the tickets and our friends too. We continued to explore the park, of interest we came across a huge sundial, but it was true that they were in the shade under the caps of the trees, so it might have been a shady clock.
There are several exits from the park to different cities, we chose the city of Talloires-Montmin! While walking towards the city, a young deer ran out onto the path, and also gracefully stood under the rays of the sun. Our eyes met, and the deer, like a magician, vanished at the speed of light. By the way, there were squirrels, but against the background of a meeting with a deer, it is no longer necessary to talk about them. The town at the foot of the park met us with sunshine and beautiful water.
Well, how can you not eat in such a city! We found a market, bought food that needs to be cooked in the microwave. Then I went to the confectionery and asked,
to warm up food in the microwave. At first, the guy was embarrassed by my request, but I was so inspired by the trip and the meeting with the deer that he simply could not refuse me. Well, he also couldn’t refuse because we spoke different languages and it was easier for him to agree to explain something. Although in English he did say in the end, “So, will you buy something? )” I gladly bought a croissant from him, and then even two more. The croissants are excellent. Still France! Yes, and ate well, even with desserts. Since the chocolate mousse was sold only four pieces at a time, I had to drink almost half a liter of mousse) For 1.8 euros) Taxi, what else do we have nearby? The map showed that a couple of kilometers in the mountains there is an excellent waterfall. The weather apparently saw in us the true connoisseurs of Annecy and the promised rain changed to a bright and clear sun! The rain has already moved into the middle of the day.
The road to the mountains is very picturesque, the lake opens up from new and new angles and from different heights. Yes, and the waterfall is not anyhow, you still need to look for such powerful and high ones.
The clock shows that the next bus will be only in 50 minutes, so we will have time to climb somewhere else. We randomly chose a mark on the map and set off for another path through the forests. This time there was an old stone bridge with a mountain river flowing under it. Near the bridge is a green glade, surrounded by mountain peaks on one side. In the clearing we had a halt with sunbathing. To be honest, I almost fell asleep
We descended from the mountains and boarded the bus. The sunny sky saw that we had finished with the panoramas and began to pull up little by little the clouds. By the time we got back to Annecy, everything was already completely delayed. But no rain! And since there is no rain, and there is still half a daylight ahead,
then you can go further. Luckily, we got some sleep on the bus.
Gorges du Fier Canyon
We transferred to one of the city buses and drove to the small neighboring town of Poisy, where we had to transfer to another bus, but it was somehow too lazy to wait for it) Our goal was the Gorges du Fier canyon. We decided to walk about five kilometers, it will not differ much in time from waiting for the bus. The navigator led us along the route, we decided to improve the route and went longer through the forests. That we are young, a kilometer there, a kilometer here. As a reward, we received the most gorgeous yellow fields with flowers.
At that time we did not yet know that it was rapeseed, so we wondered what kind of spectacular plant it was. I wanted to bathe in flowers. And against the background of gloomy clouds, bright flowers looked like an endless sunny meadow, and with snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance. Don't know,
what awaits us in the canyon, but the route has already been counted as a success. We got so carried away with photoshoots that we completely lost our way and had to return a bit from the fields. The place where we found the fields.
Apparently, the fields influenced us so foolishly that we then again lost our way, although we followed strictly according to the navigator. But the most important thing is that even in such gloomy weather, the singing of birds flowed like a river. The weather apparently took into account our desire to see every corner of the suburbs, the rain dripped for about 10 minutes and was again delayed by several hours. The canyon is a very unusual place to visit. Here, of course, there are no waterfalls, but the mountain river below is present, as expected.
On the floor at times there are blue marks for the legs, if you stand on the mark, then
you can see abstract images of stone figures. Part of the route is inside the canyon on a special bridge, and another part is outside inside the reserve. The entrance fee is quite democratic, about 6 euros per person. Although they could have let in for free))) We spent about an hour in the canyon. We are great! Made two full-fledged routes today! Nearby is the Chateau de Montrottier. Do not miss the castle because of some kind of fatigue? !
Let's go, walk around the castle - beauty, and the castle itself is made for glory. Still and nowhere are stone lions visible. What to do next? It is now around 18:00, we have been on our feet since six in the morning, we have already passed the mountains, and the canyon and hiking trails, and for good we need to go to the hotel and rest. But the beauty of these places was so enchanting that I would never forgive myself if we lost the remaining three hours of daylight at the hotel. So this is the plan!
We find a cozy place with a greener clearing, rest until the strength returns and continue the route. As ordered, a column with drinking water, two benches and a table turned up. As they said in one program - “Good night)”. Literally 30 minutes was enough to restore some strength and be ready for new wanderings. And we also had delicious lemon buns, perhaps they also contributed to the restoration of strength. We decided so, since the places are still picturesque, then we will go to the city on foot too. It's about 8 kilometers. Maybe we don't have enough strength, then we'll jump on the bus. The tablet took us through forests overgrown with wild garlic. So on the way we were accompanied by a slight smell of shawarma.
In the forest, we had to climb a little up the mountain, the navigator did not spare us. He also stumbled and sprained his leg. The leg began to swell, but this did not extinguish the fighting spirit, we continue! At the exit from the forest
we caught up with local residents who were leading a large dog on a leash. The dog watched us catch up with them, happily jumped up and wagged its tail. For a couple of seconds she was distracted by the owner, and then turned back to us and rejoiced. When we finally caught up with them, the dog's joy knew no bounds. It's like she's been waiting for us all day! The dog literally wanted to be kissed. We walked through the fields and towns for a long time, but in the end we were overtaken by a downpour and still had to jump into the bus! When we got off at the stop in Annecy itself, all the accumulated fatigue finally made itself felt, the twisted leg was completely swollen and it became problematic to walk. We barely made it to our room. I fell face down on the bed. All other movements around the room, I tried to do so that there were sofas on the route. It was evening outside, not even dark yet.
But fortunately,
it was raining and without remorse it was possible to rest. It was a really long and eventful day. Now let's open the tablet and find out when will we catch the sun tomorrow? At 7 o'clock in the morning! The picture is similar, early in the morning partly cloudy, then rains according to the forecast. Well, at least you can set the alarm for an hour later!
Duyenne
By morning, the leg didn’t get better, it was seriously swollen in the ankle area. And in a good way in Kyiv it would be necessary to run to the doctor. But I don’t know by what incredible miracle I was able to stand on it easily. If not for the appearance, then I would not have thought that something was wrong with her. It would be very disappointing if I could not go to Annecy. We reached the stop and went to the town of Duingne, which is located in one of the remote corners of the lake. The sky was overcast, torn clouds enveloping the mountains.
On the bus, it felt like you were going on a tour.
We drove to the town for about 50 minutes. Still, I will describe once again how wildly beautiful everything is here, how the bus passes through narrow streets along one-story houses planted with flower beds and dense trimmed bushes. We got off in the city near the island on which the castle stood. The castle itself was private. We walked a little along the embankment and turned onto the training route to the mountains.
The higher we went, the weather became exactly the opposite of the forecast. The sky was clearer and clearer, when we finally got to the view, which resembles the views on the Norwegian fjord, it became completely clear and sunny! Thanks weather, thanks! Are we back in Norway? Oh, it's a pity to go down sooner or later. And this is a pleasant feeling when you see beauty, it’s wildly beautiful for you, it increases the level of joy inside, but at the same time you want to somehow absorb it into yourself.
what you can do is take a picture, but this is not enough! I want to see it, but it's impossible. No matter how much you look, it's still not enough. The sun shone even brighter, well, that's it, now it's generally impossible to break away. So we remained to look at nature until old age....That's the end of the fairy tale, who read that well done!
And yet I had to break away, because soon the scheduled boat will sail. In general, what can I say, DO NOT go to the survey over Duane, it's too beautiful there! Lake Annecy at this time of the year is unusually quiet, we did not even imagine that a boat could sail here. But the timetable is hanging on the pier. We arrived 5 minutes before departure to a lonely pier. Idyll, unity with the lake, but there is not even a boat on the horizon.
While we were walking, we saw how a tourist was photographing a swan in a deserted back street, which stupidly posed in front of him! Some fairy tales are going on here.
This is probably the swan on which Ivasyk-Telesyk flew. We sat by a deserted lake and waited for the timetable, oddly enough, after 7 minutes a boat appeared out of nowhere and took us away.
Now the simplified version of Norway number two has begun. Even it was not always easy to decide in which direction it is more beautiful to look. Here's what I want to say - the program "Around M" did not go to us at all, but it was not in vain that it was removed. Now many people will learn about these cool places, which can be reached very quickly and on a budget. It’s hard to believe that the town of Annecy, which was shown there in a secondary and very small way, I remember so much that later it turned out to be a rather serious and cool trip.
Sailing across the lake on a boat to or from Duene should also be a must. The boat, if I'm not mistaken, cost 8.5 euros per person.
We landed at Annecy. Went for some local street food. For France, the classic is baguettes-sandwiches. Here you can buy a solid size up to 6 euros. We took a very unusual one inside it was a Tartiflette dish. The base is potatoes. True, this particular filling was over in front of us, so we took a tuna sandwich, but paid for both, so that they would later cook for us out of turn. TASTY! ! ! ! And I liked it better with tuna.
In the hotel they made a small break and felt sorry for the swollen leg, since Dasha grabbed fastum gel. And again on the road. This time we chose the route along the canal towards the suburbs. We walked through beautiful parks, through forests, even the canal in the park looks very beautiful, they seem to tint the water on purpose.
A couple of times fell under the rain and again under the sun.
And back to the old city we walked through the new one. And even the new city did not disappoint. Everything is neat and clean. The closer you get to the old, the more greenery and flowers. Not far from the old town there is a huge green field where you can run or lie down to relax. Since there was still a lot of time left, we set ourselves the unspoken goal of going through all the streets of the old city in general. And even wandered into the castle. Unfortunately, 30 minutes before closing, they didn’t let us in, even for money it’s impossible.
It’s not even possible for money to just go in to take pictures on the territory and go out. They said to come tomorrow. In our case, it sounds like coming back in 7-10 years, when you fly here again. Okay, remember this castle, we'll be back someday. It was already evening and the sky was completely overcast with rain. We, with a sense of accomplishment “Climb absolutely everywhere”, tired, went to the hotel to rest.
We decided to buy another sandwich in front of the hotel. While we were doing it, the unthinkable and unplanned happened. The clouds parted and a clear sun peeked out against the blue sky. The saleswoman asked us: “Is everything okay? ". On the one hand, it’s even very good, instead of the promised rains, we got just fabulous weather for all of Annecy, but on the other hand, conscience simply won’t allow us to take it and go to the hotel to relax in such weather....Went again for a walk along the promenade far, far along the lake.
If, after reading the story, you set yourself plans to visit this unusual city, then my goal has been achieved, fly yourself and tell your friends about how beautiful it is on the planet! Well, we continue the route, now to Switzerland!
Trip Information
Date of travel: 24.04. 2019 – 28.04. 2019
Duration: 3 full days and two halves
Flight tickets: UIA
Hotels: Airbnb and Booking
Excursions: All by yourself
Trip difficulty: 4/10 (Below average)
