Day trip to Annecy!

Kathleen, Marryn and I went on a little excursion to Annecy. We took two trains each way about 6 hours travel time in all.  I added a map of France below to shed some geographical light onto our travels.

Like St. Etienne, Annecy is in the Rhone-Alpes region. It 's in the Northeastern part next to Franche-Compte and Switzerland. 

The day got off to a bit of a rough start. I am apparently still quite the novice at traveling so I missed my tram (in my defense it came early), once I got on I missed my stop to switch lines, so I was directed to get off on the next stop and wait for the next tram running on the t2 line and I would maybe make it to the train station on time. I waited 10 minutes for the t2 tram, got on went about four stops when I was informed that I was supposed to cross the street (to a more experienced traveler, this would have probably been very obvious). So this picture is from, emotionally speaking, a defeated place and geographically speaking, "Cite du design" where I had to wait another 10 minutes for the right tram. Needless to say, we missed our 7:48 train. Determined to do better next time.

Lucky for me M and K are extremely understanding people and were actually seen on our 8:50 train smiling!

Along our way we opened a chocolate bar and were wowed by a big beautiful lake. 

(picture courtesy of Kathleen)

Turns out I love a good mirror picture, I'm gonna keep 'em coming!

Welcome to Annecy.

This is the "pont des amours"

Starving searching for some lunch that isn't 22 Euros. The water runs throughout the old part of the town, I've never been to Venice, but it's just like that...

After an absolutely perfect long lunch of a goat cheese and tomato tartine, salad, potatoes, red wine, and espresso, we headed towards the lake. We found a bench and sat for a while, the water was unbelievably clear.

A family brought yesterdays baguette to feed the birds, this swan was on a mission!

This is the old jail, and one of the most famous sights of Annecy.

In case you haven't heard hot wine is one of my new favorite things to drink, it's a holiday drink so I've been getting it while it's hot. 

View from a random bridge. 

The last Saturday of every month artists and vendors come to Annecy for a big market, it was literally all over the old part of the town. I was tempted to buy these old french flags, but I decided a picture might be easier to take back home. 

Cheese's two biggest fans drooling over the window display.

They knew where I was headed.

Fingers crossed Annecy wins! Then I can say "I was there when..."