Annecy: Mon 9 – Thurs 12 Sept: Accommodation
Mon 9th September
It was 30 degrees the day we arrived at Basel and half of that on the day we left. Sadly, we had wet and cool weather for much of the 3 1/2 hr drive down to Annecy. We found our apartment without too much difficulty but we were a little disappointed as it did not look as nice as how it had stumped up in the AirBnB photos. This prompted another rant from Mark about how he’s definitely selling his shares in the company.
Our Annecy accommodation had an AirBnB rating of 4.85 from 130 reviews. I re-checked the recent reviews and they were all glowing but it just didn’t match with our reality. The venue was tainted for me when I noticed just one roll of toilet paper was available; for 2 people for 3 nights. To me, this just seemed extraordinarily petty and the venue was going to struggle from this point to get me back on board. Why on earth do places skimp on toilet paper? It’s such a small cost to the owner but a very polarising issue for the traveler! Add this to the very old bath towels, dated bed linen, bad smell from the washing machine permeating the apartment and that the place was not at all clean and, well, I’ll stop there.
It was raining for much of the afternoon but we set out to explore the Old Town area anyway and found the famous Palais de l’Ile, as had hundreds of other tourists, but we took the obligatory photos. We stopped off to have a drink and had a bit of a chat about things. As a result of that chat, I spent the next little while re-jigging our itinerary; whilst Mark was having a few beers and making encouraging comments and cheering me on from his chair. I cut one day off this current Annecy stay, moved our next stay in Grenoble forward by one day and booked the resultant free night at a nice hotel in Turin. Well, I hope it’s nice! We shall see.
The challenge with staying in such a popular tourist area was to find a non-touristy place for dinner and, in this endeavour, we failed. Our meal was entirely adequate but that’s about all. We were both so incredibly disappointed as we’d been greatly looking forward to our stay in Annecy. I do realise these are ‘first world problems’ but, when so much careful planning and expense had been invested in preparing this journey, we were feeling rather dismayed. The disappointment with this particular listing led me to review our later stay at Como and that opened an even bigger can of worms regarding AirBnB in general. That’s a tale for another time and I’ll see how my request for help with them goes. However, the end result of that penny-drop moment is that we cancelled our Lake Como water view apartment booking (sad face here) and booked into a boutique hotel. It had a been a very full and tiring day and we both collapsed into bed.
Tue 10th September
It was a cool and overcast morning but, thankfully, the rain had gone. We used the morning to explore more of Annecy and, given there were no scheduled walking tours, we used another one of the GPSmyCity guides to help us navigate around the Old Town. This was pretty useful and is a guide I would recommend if you’re ever in the area. We were very pleased to discover that Tuesday is market day in Annecy and the markets were exceptional, the kind of markets we had been used to In Paris, and we bought some delicious food items to have for our dinner back at the apartment tonight. Including the all-important green vegetables.
The day cleared to become beautiful and sunny so it was perfect for our afternoon activity which was to do some cycling around a section of Lake Annecy. The lake is about 34 km around and we went out for 10 and back for 10 which meant I did 20 km in total which was pretty good for someone who rarely hops on a bike. It was the most glorious afternoon for such an activity and I would’ve liked to travel even further afield but my back was too sore. I should have taken some Voltaren before the ride.
We dropped our bikes off at the shop and then headed into the Old Town to have celebratory drink whilst overlooking the River Thiou and the magnificent Palais de l’Ile. After that, we bought some more dinner items and then drifted back home for an evening of dining in.
Annecy is absolutely beautiful and definitely one to add to your wish list and I would suggest you allocate 2 or 3 nights for any planned visit. Unfortunately, our apartment is one that I would recommend despite the glorious view. Next stop for us: Grenoble, France.
