Holiday Day 23 – A funny green liquid & Christmas decorations in June

Today we moved out of the South of France and north into Savoy. Our destination was Annecy, which is a historic town at the tip of the lake of the same name. The question was how would we drive between the Vercors and Annecy. The easy way would have been to take the motorway, but the Sheppard’s do not do easy.

We decided to visit the Chartreuse region, this is essentially a high plateau between Grenoble and Chambery, and is the source of the mysterious green liquid of the same name. This complies with one of my rules of drinking, never touch anything green. Apparently two monks only know the recipe! I know this is not quite Coca-Cola but I would make sure that it was written down somewhere.

I hade previously done some research and we had chosen a small family run restaurant to eat deep in the heart of the area, more about this later. The initial run down from the Vercors was spectacular as it involved a vertiginous approach to Grenoble, the only major city that we have driven through twice on this holiday. It was challenging with trams, telephiriques, rivers, and sleeping policeman. Almost inevitably the Chartreuse plateau was reached by a long wind climb out of Grenoble. Again once on the plateau the mountain scenery was spectacular.

The highlight of the day was the lunch stop. It was a large restaurant in a small quite isolated village. Front of house was Madame who was very jolly with her husband the chef appearing at irregular intervals. We were the youngest people eating there and certainly the only foreigners. The dining room followed a trend whereby the Christmas decorations were still up. We have noticed this before; I suppose that it saves work. The remarkable thing about the decoration was the abundance of plastic flowers; they were everywhere including the toilets. Some were even lit up. The whole place was a blast from the past. However the food was good so Sunday lunch was enjoyed.

When we arrived in Annecy Marion was unwell with a tummy bug, so I spent the early evening walking round the town. It has an old part centred round canals not unlike Bruges in Belgium. The old town leads to a long promenade around the lake. It was crowded with promenaders, even at one point there was a tea dance being held. I look forward to exploring further with Marion tomorrow.