Annecy

On Sunday, March 31st, I visited Annecy, France with my cousins Amber & Mike and their kids Xavier and Claire. This is where my cousins used to live before they moved to Morges a few years ago and it’s only a one hour drive away. Annecy is located right on Lake Annecy and has a beautiful old town area lined with colorful buildings, cobblestone streets, and canals. It’s known as Venice’s sister city, and although I haven’t been to Venice, I can understand why!

When we first got to Annecy, we went to the old town area where there was a big Sunday market. It was your classic European market, filled with fresh fruits, cheeses, clothes, souvenirs, and other homemade products like soaps. It was a beautiful day out and the market was pretty busy! We walked around and bought different meats, cheeses, vegetables, olives, etc. to make dinner in Morges that night. I sampled a lot of the cheeses and I really liked some of the soft cheeses I tried, like brie.

We saw Palace I’lle, a “palace” surrounded by water that served as an old prison and castle in medieval times. It has now been turned into a museum. The canal that it was on was breathtaking: from the center bridge, you see the prison from one direction, but if you turn to look the other way you can see the mountains.

We had a picnic lunch in a park where Xavier and Claire could play. It was the first really warm day for me in Europe (it hit 70 degrees!) and so nice to sit out in the sun. Once we finished our lunch we walked along Lake Annecy, a super clear lake surrounded by the Alps. Amber and Mike pointed out where they used to live, not far from the water at all. We found an amusement park area as we walked further down the water and Mike and Xavier played mini golf while Claire got to play in bouncy houses. By this time, it was already late afternoon and we headed back to the car so we could get back to Morges at a reasonable time before dinner and bedtime for the kids. Of course, we ended the day in Annecy with ice cream!