Annecy; Saturday, 04 May, 2024

I had a relatively late lie-in and consequently breakfast in a very busy restaurant as everyone else had also had a lie in, before heading out of the hotel and down to the lakeside again, this time to pick up the city bus tour. As with some other French cities I’ve recently visited it looks like the French may have fallen out of love with La Petit Train, instead opting for convertible cabriobuses – the example here in Annecy being identical to the ones in Reims and Toulouse.

The tour starts by heading up into the hills of the newer part of town and up to the Basilica of the Visitation, high on the hill overlooking both the lake, the old town, and the castle, offering some of the best views of the city. The bus stopped here for about 15 minutes giving everyone time to explore both the basilica and take in the views. From there the tour carried on around the edge of the old town and then out along the road running along the bottom edge of the lake for some stunning views down the length of it before reaching the beautiful Impérial PalaceHotel, built in 1913 as one of the best examples of the Belle Époque spirit. Left to decline from the 1950s onwards and partially destroyed in a fire in 1981 the building has been restored to its glory and is once again a luxury hotel and casino, though with the land now owned by the city the former gardens of the hotel are now public parks.

The tour finished back by the lakeside near the old town, so I had a little bit of a wander around there before heading back out along the lakeside road to take in the views in a more leisurely way, as well as to look around the parks and gardens of the Imperial Palace.

One of the more unique attractions of the park is a large Aviary that’s home to mostly wildfowl as well as a couple of peacocks (one mid-show when I arrived), as well as a cockerel which was attempting to upstage the peacocks feather display with a very loud set of crowing!

I decided my bank balance could probably not afford a late afternoon lunch in a five start hotel, so I walked round the corner to a grocery store to pick up a slightly stale sandwich and that French staple – Orangina, which I had in the park before wandering back in towards the centre of town, stopping off to have a look around the impressive St Maurice church, which has one of the many streams of the Le Thiou running underneath it.

I headed back to the hotel to freshen up for a bit before heading back out in search of dinner, this time managing to find a restaurant quite close to the hotel that did Savoir specialties that weren’t all based on melted cheese.

Dinner completed I staggered back to the hotel under the weight of two pretty impressive Savoir Sausages and a rather expensive onion soup, for a nightcap in the hotel and then an early night as I had to be up early the following morning.