FRANCE part 5, August 2019


Sunday morning, time to drive! Forgot to mention that on the day before we finally went looking for a "one way" car rental, yes we PRORASTINATED!! The Hertz counter rep pretty much laughed at us, in French of course, including a less than encouraging rolling of the eyes..."no reservation, no cars". My wife looked at me and we figured...."well, we have certainly screwed up royally this time"! As we walked to EuropCar just down the street we said "oh well, there's always the train, right?! The EuropCar young lady did not laugh or roll her eyes, but had to ask a manager...uh oh...manager did not laugh, but she may have rolled her eyes...then ...BINGO!! they offered us their last car, a nice shiny Peugeot mini SUV!!! Thank you EuropCar!!!!








If you think we procrastinated with the car, so was the planning of this next leg to the alpine village of Annecy. We knew the route, but hadn't decided on what to see along the way. We passed exits for many attractive sights, but continued saying "next time!". After a couple hours of heading north we did decide to take a pit stop in Aix-en-Provence, home of Paul Cezzane! This was a good stop, but we didn't have enough time to do it justice. We walked a lot of the Centre-ville enjoying the tight streets, monuments and of course the churches, The Cathedrale D'Aix en Provence is another beautiful feat of architecture!
























After a couple hours of sightseeing and wanting to arrive in Annecy by sunset we hit the highway. Arriving in town under darkening skies we parked in a nondescript garage just uphill from the village and walked in via the back streets. Entering a narrow cobblestone street lined with shops and restaurants we quickly found the Hotel du Palais de I'sle. This hotel sits perfectly in the middle of town and if you are lucky a couple of rooms offer romantic balconies on the Thiou canal. Since we reserved our room just a couple weeks prior, we settled for a large newly renovated room offering 2 huge windows with nice views.





















Freshened up, then hit the streets. The overcast skies gave way to darkness, but boy does this medieval village comes alive with color! After 9pm we found a nice small restaurant and grabbed a table outside under the veranda with a wonderful view of the 12th century Le Palais de'I'lle, which sits in the middle of the canal. It drizzled a little during dinner and we were happy being under cover as people walked by with umbrellas. Great pizza and tasty truffled mac and cheese served by a wonderful family! At the end of dinner they graciously brought out a regional anise-flavored "digestif" called Genepy, which I liked!
















The drizzle had stopped and we meandered around late into the evening, enjoying the colors and peace and quiet. We couldn't wait to see this town in the daylight!!

































To be continued..........