We’ve been skirting along the south-eastern side of France, an area that neither of us have really explored before. In the past we have watched a couple of French crime drama series that were filmed at the scenic Lake Annecy in the Haute Savoie region and it’s a place that we’ve always said we’d like to visit, so this is the perfect opportunity. It was also a convenient place to meet up with UK friends from Joe’s military vehicle and vintage Harley groups who were travelling in France.
We made our way cross country with off-grid overnight stops in very diverse places. One night on the edge of the alpine village of Saint Maximin with rolling pastures and, a short walk up the hill behind us, the 33 metre high Tour d’Avalon with historical links to the UK. The tower was built by Chartreuse monks on the site of a former castle and the birthplace of Hugh of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln in the 12th century. Fortunately the tower is closed until high summer so we didn’t feel the need to climb inside to enjoy the views. Another night was spent in a woodland leisure base with river, reservoir and a walk to a waterfall. When we arrived at Lake Annecy we had time before arriving at our final location to spend a night on the opposite side of the lake surrounded by sheep and with a view of the lake.
Lake Annecy is as beautiful as we had envisaged with the stunning backdrop of mountains, a magnet for paragliders, and cycle and walking paths all around the lake which many people were making use of. Our proper base for a few days was at Sévrier, about 5 km outside the town of Annecy which is at the northern end of the lake and at a campsite with direct access onto the lake. The lake is perfect for all kinds of water-based activities and the weather was more than kind to us, so good use was made of inflatable boats and paddle boards came out for the first time this year.
The campsite arranges transport by water taxi to the market days in Annecy several times week, so we decided to take advantage of arriving at the town in style and seeing it from the lake. From the moment you step off the boat, the medieval old town is visible in front of you with cobbled streets and pastel coloured houses. The Palais de l’isle, a 12th century castle, sits on the river Thiou and the old town streets and bridges cross it at various points with beautiful traditional wooden shopfronts still visible.
Food stalls of all kinds lined the streets and we stocked up on various produce for our meals over the next few days. Coming from a family of bakers I’m a sucker for seeing bakers at work and for trying new cakes. We stopped first at a traditional bakers with a long queue outside – hopefully a good sign – for something for breakfast to go with coffee. The bakers were working away busily in front of the customers.
At a stall on the market we were intrigued by what looked like very burnt cakes with a light spongy middle, almost like an extremely light baked cheesecake. We were invited to taste the cake called ‘tourteau’ and advised it goes very well with berries and cream, or simply eaten on its own. We returned at the end of our meanderings to buy one of the cakes and left with instructions on how to keep it for up to 10 days – not that there was much chance it would last that long. After doing further research it seems the cake is a originally speciality of the Poitou-Charente region and is called Tourteau Fromager (or fromagé) and traditionally made with light goat’s cheese. The cake is baked in a tin lined with a thin pastry shell and cooked at a very high heat that gives it the burnt exterior but keeps the inside moist and light.
A lovely stop made even more enjoyable by the company of Nolan and Sarah and definitely somewhere we’d be very happy to visit again in the future.