20/07/2009
Up early to catch the bus to the train station and up to Annecy. On the way to the station in the bus, Asher realised he’d forgot his student card (25% discount) which he’d have to present, so a quick call to Pippa (to get her out of bed) and asked if she could drop it off at the train station. We tried to get the booked tickets out of the machine but no go, so had to go to the ticket counter which didn’t open till 8:30 and we were leaving at 8:40! So, some slight panicing just as Pippa turned up on her bike! (her reward for coming down was to find 5 Euros on her way back out of the station!) The ticket people couldn’t get the printer working, I went off to get a few coffees, the ticket lady directed to wrong platform, but somehow we made it onto the train!
A pleasant trip on the train and after arriving, a quick visit to the tourist office for a map and then Ash took us on a walking tour of the old part of the city. Enjoyed how the town has a couple of canals and buildings/cafes along the water. Wandered for a couple of hours and then picked up some bread to have with our bbq chicken down near the lake.
Beautiful! Very picturesque, with mountains all around, boats on the lake, paddle boats for hire. bicycles, a private beach (10 Euros) where you had access to facilities, minigolf, water slides etc.) and the hotel/casino & gardens, and the public beach which was very busy. Lots of people lying in the sun and spread out from the water across the grass, right up to the footpath. It all looked a little crazy with all this tanning flesh and bodies everywhere – we had to walk between people’s legs to get through!.
In a couple of days they will be holding a time trial for the Tour de france so things were starting to be set up with barriers and power cables etc. We thought we might catch a bus around the lake a little to visit a chateau (the boat cost 15 Euros and did a whole lap of the lake which we didn’t want to do) so we walked a for a bit but couldn’t find a bus. The train went back a different way so nice to see some different scenery and much easier than hiring a car (which we’d contemplated but it got too difficult & expensive).
