Annecy. A busy and very public place.

Thursday 13th August 2020

There is a light shower of rain this morning, no fancy sun rises today. After breakfast, we pack up and secure our stuff and set off on the 30 minute downhill, twisty turny, potentially dangerous, roads to the main town of Annecy right on lake Annecy. It will be the first time we will have been to a large, busy, and very public place. There is no use in hiding, so armed with our mask and hand sanitiser we give it a go.

There is a free Aire in the town where we can dump water, fill up with fresh, and sort out the toilet. It is packed. The whole town is just chaos, some doing social distancing some not. It is good though to now see people out and about. There is a small beach on the lake which is just rammed full. Yes, the infection numbers are going up in France and this is why with people flocking to places like this. Follow the rules, keep yourself clean, and you will be fine.

The town is very pretty, the Venice of France some call it, with a couple of canals and very picturesque restaurant-lined streets. Nice.

However, we are getting a bit fed up with it already. Too many people than what we have been used to, lots of the same kinds of restaurants and ice-cream shops, same, same and same again. No, we like the long unmarked roads, small dusty villages, green hills, and mountains. That’s what we came for.

We get back tot he van do the service, have a chat with a very nice English family who are out for the first time. Let’s get going. Let’s go to… the shops, we are running low on fruit, veg and yes beer.

We need to get back to the mountains and the peace so we make for Grand Bornand which is a beautiful ski resort.

Our arrival into Grand Bornand is later than our usual arrival times. We find the place we are staying in, it is free of charge and with a brilliant view from the driver’s position.

The town is charming, not too busy, plenty of restaurants which are full, so full you can’t get a place, no matter we will dine at Chez Jess tonight.

There is a cable car and chairlift here to Mont Lachat, popular with skiers, something we haven’t done although Hayley has tried with her good friends from School, in Glenshee. Skiing in the Alps or Glenshee. Hmmm, which one to choose?

We will try the cablecar tomorrow.