Day 5 Annecy, France

Today we left our hotel in Paris and travelled by high speed train to a much smaller town in eastern France. It must be marathon day in this country. When we left our hotel to catch our train this morning we were forced to take a route that bypassed the course for the Paris marathon that is hosting 40,000 runners. Then upon our arrival in Annecy we were not able to get close to our hotel because Annecy was hosting a marathon of its own. Nevertheless we got to our very quaint hotel located on the canal filled by water exiting from Lake Annecy. It was raining as the train sped toward our destination and continued as we arrived. It was a good day to travel. We will explore the town much more in the next two days and provide a more complete report. What I can report is that Annecy is a little town tucked in to the north western corner of the lake. Directly across the lake, mountains of the Alps appear to rise dramatically from the waters edge. We are located in the old part of town which is crisscrossed by small cobblestone streets. I have included a picture from the small balcony of our room showing the canal with an antiquated building and another picture looking the opposite direction down the canal and out to the lake.

Chris - Our train was a high speed train which sped through what appeared to be small hamlets with brilliant green farmland, dotted with lots of white cows. There were huge fields of bright yellow flowers or gain that appeared to look like the canola they grow in Montana, we even passed through some vineyards. About an hour and a half outside of Annecy the train slowed and started to travel through some mountains and alongside a large lake. I really enjoyed the landscape of the trip, I do LOVE to travel by train!! Annecy is a gorgeous town that looks like a cross between Brugge, Belgium (with the canals and flowers, when in season) and Bigfork (being poised at the foot of a large lake and known as an art town). Even in the cold rain it's gorgeous!!! Annecy is located near the Swiss border, 35 kilometers south of Geneva and at the foot of mountains like Mont Blanc and Chamonix . Annecy, itself, has an altitude of only 448 meters and Annecy Lake is 14.6 kilometers by 3.3 kilometers. So despite being the 2nd largest lake in France, it's considerably smaller than Flathead Lake. The Thiou River, flowing through town via canals, is one of the shortest rivers in Europe measuring only 3.5 kilometers.

Enough background, Now to the important things...like food. Our quaint hotel, Boutique Hotel du Palais de L'Isle is not only on the canal near the base of the lake, it's smack dab in the middle of at lease two gelato stores! So far I've only tried one, it wasn't an gelato flower like yesterday, but it was good! For dinner we ate at La Table d'Elise, right by our hotel and also on the canal. I had an Annecy specialty, Tartiflette, which is au gratin potatoes with onions and bacon. Yep, pretty much the perfect meal for this potato fanatic! I've included a picture so maybe you can tell how wonderful it was!

We hope we don't have rain tomorrow so we can comfortably and warmly explore these small alleys, waterways and stores.