Day 7. Annecy, France

The weather improved as promised. After a quick pastry at a small cafe we were off to see the Chateau that overlooks the city. As cooperative as the weather was the schedule at the Chateau was uncooperative since it is closed on Tuesdays. So much for us being patient. We should have gone yesterday. So we walked around town an revisited some of our earlier routes. We chanced upon a farmers market which must have been magically set up over night. They must have used the same route Hannible took, they came so quietly. The market is a busy place in French culture. They have perfected the art of setting up their markets so, much that they have developed special purpose vehicles that once parked open up to display their wares. Kind of "have market will travel" for those of you old enough to understand the reference.

After a lunch we retraced our route to the lake side and took a boat ride that circled the lake. Given the nice weather this was a good choice. We got to see first hand how the little towns around the lake were nestled against the backdrop of the mountains. We passed one Chateau which has been in the same family for 27 generations and they still live there. Unbelievable. I hope our pictures do them justice. The lake looks to be about one fourth the size of Flathead Lake. It is clear and we are told you can see down to depths of 24 feet. They say it warms up to about 75 degrees in the summertime. The area close to Annecy appears to be relatively shalow so we could see how it could get warm with some sunshine. With the mountains rising so quickly from the lake the locals took advantage of the topography as we could see many hang gliders and paragliders in the air. Some were so high I was scared just to watch them for fear they would fall. They must have jumped off one of the surrounding mountains. We had an interesting dinner but I will leave that for Chris to describe. It was a lovely day in town but we are ready to move on. Tomorrow we leave for Italy . Our train will eventually take us to Milan where we will pick up our car. We will then be on our own to navigate through the rest of our trip. The adventure continues!!!

Chris - I really enjoyed the farmer's market this morning and was able to get some fresh fruit for breakfast, as well as a fresh raisin baguette. It was great to finally see sunshine this afternoon and see this beautiful town sparkle. I definitely want to come back some June to take advantage of the water and the summer flowers. As for dinner...Linda had told me about two meals that Anncey was famous for and since I tried the first one on Monday, tonight was the night for the second dinner...Raclette. Raclette actually can be used to describe three things; a particular type of cheese, a grill that is placed on the dining table to melt cheese and a type of meal or manner of eating. So we ate Raclette tonight, you have to order it for two so Paul was game to give it a try as well. The term Raclette comes from the french word racier, which means "to scrape", pertaining to the fact that the melted cheese must be scraped from the grill and onto the your plate. The process is that they bring you a heating element that holds a huge triangular hunk of Racette cheese that melts slowly at the table. As it heats you continually scrape off the bubbly cheese and put it on various food they have brought you. The basic dish consists of boiled potatoes, bread and salad. We chose the version that included those plus "pig-meat", I was hoping for bacon or ham and not that intestine thing Paul got his first night in Paris. Paula, there would be tears if I saw it was the chunky intestine thing, MY tears! Fortunately, we got bacon and ham and found the process to be fun and the cheese ... very creamy, mild and extremely good. My favorite combination was on bread with a small piece of ham. We finished about a third of the cheese and when we said we were done they said the French usually finish the whole thing!! I need to up my cheese consumption! :) FYI, Most people think that fondue is the most popular dish in Switzerland when in fact, Raclette, is actually more popular than fondue in most parts of Switzerland.

Tomorrow, supposedly back to rain and on to Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy. Loved our stay in France!!