Holiday Day 24 – Annecy and Lake Geneva

Two lakes today and a real contrast. Another very sunny day so we took advantage of the morning cool to walk round the lovely old streets of Annecy. Old houses with vaulted fronts overlook canals running into the lake. The town is full of tourists and it is the first place where we have heard English generally spoken. The lake is all hustle and bustle, with pleasure steamers and pleasure boats, ranging from pedaloes to large motor cruisers. By lunchtime it was beginning to get crowded and hot so we moved on to Evian Les Bains, which is on Lake Geneva or Lac Leman, as it is known locally.

Evian is a typical turn of the century French resort town full of grand if slightly faded buildings and the inevitable casino. It has a long promenade fronting onto the lake, however there is only limited activity. There is the regular ferry to Lausanne in Switzerland that docks every 90 minutes or so and a few motorboats. I was surprised how close Switzerland is, rather like the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth. I was also surprised that given the disparity between the Euro and the Swiss Franc that there is not much evidence of cross-border trade. Everything is quite quiet, the season obviously has not started yet.

This evening after dinner we sat on the promenade and watched the sun go down over the hills. Hopefully I will be able to publish some of the results on my Twitter feed. It was around 23 degrees and just very pleasant framed by the spectacular crimsons of the setting sun. Tomorrow we will be going for to explore on the lake.